Old Friends
by Ellster
Summary: Meeting old friends - making new ones It seems like one of the things that just happen to any field agent at some point. But then Benji runs into an old acquaintance he wouldn't have expected. (Rated T for violence)
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I try to keep the science sound, but DO NOT TRY AT HOME.

Note: I have this story already finished and beta read in its entirety. But since it's pretty long, I don't want to publish it in bunch, so I'll try to publish the chapters on a weekly basis.

* * *

 **Old** **Friends**

 _Rain was pouring heavily onto the streets of the city, turning the streets into small, trickling brooks with glittering surfaces that reflected the light of the street-lamps. Few people were out, not only because of the weather, but also due to the hour of night, so little that, compared to the usual masses that could be seen by day, some parts of the town seemed almost desolate._

 _Thus no one took any particular notice of the man who was running down the alleyway as if his life depended on it – which wasn't so far off – mainly because there was no one there who could have noticed him. When he stepped out of the small side-street and onto a larger and more illuminated one, he stopped just in time to not run off the sidewalk. Desperately looking left and right, he spat out a "Shit!" that could as well have been a sneeze, before, after a quick look over his shoulder closely followed by another, slightly more elaborate curse, he started off to his right, running as swiftly as he had before._

 _Someone watching this scene would now be wondering, where the man was running, or what he was running from, but that would have become obvious right away, as three more men came around that very same corner, evidently following the first. They were far closer than their victim would have liked and the object of their interest now desperately tried to bring some more distance between him and his pursuers again, but he soon found that going onto the broader street had been a mistake._

 _Back in the alleyways he had been able to dodge left and right, going in a slalom through shorter, narrower streets with dustbins and cars scattered around which could be used as cover. This larger road now already went straight for several rows of houses, with a neat tidy sidewalk of about three inches between the houses and the street, but no cars and no dustbins, not even as much as a garden fence, only the occasional lamp post, one of which he nearly ran into._

 _By day this might not have been that much of a problem, because then there would have been people around, but right now the three men following the first had just raised the average of pedestrians in this particular street by a factor of four. And as that they now suddenly had a clear view on their target, so they decided, much to the dismay of the other man, that they could once again use their guns freely._

 _The man being pursued noticed this when he suddenly heard the sharp sound of gunshots behind him, muffled by the continuously heavy rain, yet far too close. Once more he got aware of the sheer blankness of the street and its evident lack of cover. The next side-street was still two or three houses away and the doors all ended directly onto the sidewalk, so he couldn't even have ducked into a doorway._

 _Desperately he quickened his pace, to at least reach the corner, when a sharp pain erupted in his right thigh and the floor lunged at him in a nauseating way. Before his brain could process what was happening, he already crashed onto the pavement, which was accompanied by a sickening noise in his left wrist and sudden, yet short dull pain, where uncovered skin met with raw, wet asphalt._

 _The pain had already subsided by the time the man was aware that he was lying on the ground, but he was well aware that in his case that was not a sign of little or no damage done, but one of beginning shock. That overall wasn't a good thing, yet right now the fact that his brain was suppressing all signs of pain did come in handy. Somehow he managed to scramble to his feet and was positively surprised when he noticed that although it felt a little wobbly, he could still put weight onto his injured leg. Maybe he hadn't been hit that badly after all._

 _But there was no time to run anymore, for the footsteps of his pursuers were already directly behind him. Facing the inevitable, he prepared himself for the fight that was unavoidable now, and, while he still wasn't up to his full height, turned around on his good leg, throwing his fist blindly with full force at whatever happened to be behind him._

 _He got lucky with his first punch, hitting one of the attackers squarely somewhere below the ribs, which sent the goon hunched on the floor to rethink his last meal. The element of surprise gave him the chance to orient himself and he took his turn a little further to ram his knee into the adversary on his left,with the intention that he could keep his colleague company, but the goons also had had time to adjust to the change in situation. While the second of the attackers obediently grunted in pain, the third grabbed their victim by his arms, violently pulling back his shoulders, which gave his partner time for payback in the shape of several strong, well aimed blows in the poor fellows midriff._

 _Although straining hard against his captors grip, the man had no chance to escape the violent beating and after a few hits, he gave up struggling. This, most likely subconsciously, caused the goon behind him to let go ever so slightly, but enough for the victim to notice. Just as the next punch came at him, he went on his knees, throwing his whole weight into the motion and effectively pulling down the man who held him, smashing him straight into his companions fist._

 _This was distraction enough for the battered victim to scramble to his feet and make a run for it, down the street and around the corner. The alley he ended up in did not have much more to offer in terms of cover than the street he had just come from, except that street-lamps were scattered more scarcely along the road and the surroundings therefore less illuminated. But as he came around the corner, the man already spotted something much more promising._

 _Right next to the door of the first house were several post boxes, which indicated that the building held several flats. Yet there was no doorbell anywhere to be seen, so that most likely was on the inside. And that hopefully meant that the outer door was open. Seeing it as the only chance it was, he did not even slow down, but slammed right into the door, which gladly opened for him and closed behind him with a soft click._

 _Shortly afterwards angry shouts swept in from the street, but just as they had come, they faded again, and when everything stayed silent the hunted man let out the breath he hadn't noticed he had been holding. In relative safety from his pursuers he could get to the next task: getting help. Going out again was out of the question, not only because it was still raining heavily and because there was the slight chance that he might run into his assailants again, but also because now that the adrenaline rush was fading, he suddenly felt strangely tired. Besides there was no need to get back into that ungodly weather when he was in a house full of flats where people were living._

 _Steadying himself against the wall, he reached up for the bell-board, slamming his hand squarely onto it and every key within the range of his fingers, in the process leaving dirty, bloody smears on the gray plastic and the white wall below. Now he could only hope that he had managed to chase someone out of their bed._


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Guns drawn, the four men stormed into the small apartment. Although the wide-open door in the hallway suggested it was empty, they were ready for any surprise. With silent agreement they spread into the different corners of the room.

"All clear," Declan announced coming back out of the tiny bathroom that mainly consisted of a shower. He met up in the living room with Luther who had turned to the kitchenette that was around the corner and separated to the living space by a short wall. The last to join them was Ethan, only moments later. He already tucked away his nine-millimeter as he emerged from the bedroom.

"Nothing here."

"If someone's been here, he's gone now and not thinking of returning any time soon," Luther added, following Ethan. Now that it was established there was no threat in the apartment, it was time to look for clues. Declan had already put on gloves and halfheartedly lifted an almost empty microwave-lasagna dish off the small table. The traces of tomato-sauce that still covered the rim, were long dried and a slight layer of fluffy mold had settled on the rest of the dish. Disgusted, the agent put it down again, next to the empty tea-cup that still contained a teabag. "I think it's a safe bet to say that someone has been here. And most likely left in a hurry."

"I think we can also take it as a working hypothesis that this someone was Benji," Ethan added looking around. In the sleeping room he had seen the bed sheets ruffled, but the closet was empty and there was nothing else to find there. The tiny bathroom also didn't look like anyone had ever been there, except a few sprinkles of toothpaste on the mirror, but trying to take a DNA match off that would be as fruitless as it was unnecessary. The kitchenette looked as clean as the bathroom, which left only the room they were standing in right now, and it was looking pretty bleak there, too.

The room essentially consisted of an old worn-out sofa, facing an even older looking TV-Set hanging from the wall across the low table that held the lasagna leftovers. It also held the empty wrappings of several Mars bars and a couple of soda cans, some of which were still closed. All that was scattered over the table, leaving only a small square empty, which perfectly corresponded with the dent in the sofa, indicating someone must have used this as work space. Otherwise the room was just as empty as the others.

"Now that we've established that, it still leaves us with: Why was he here? What was he after? Why did he leave? And most importantly, where did he go?" Declan summed up their situation with a hint of sarcasm.

Luther let out a humorless laugh. "So basically we're no further than before. And this room is giving us nothing, we didn't already have."

"Are there no security cameras? Any video or other footage of some kind?" Gormley asked, looking around for the typical hints of hidden technology. But Ethan shook his head, even before he had ended his question.

"This is not an IMF-registered apartment. We've checked already, there are no security cameras in this building except the one right outside, which belongs to the cash machine, and it was already hard enough to find him on that tape. Also Benji obviously was not planning on a very long stay. Which means the only reason he was staying here was because he was flying under the radar. Cheap rooms, low security, free Wi-Fi, and paid for in cash."

"But what would he have to hide from?" Luther asked, raising the question aloud, that was spooking around in all their minds. "And if he had to lie low, why not just go to a safe-house? Or at least contact one of us?"

"If Benji had to lie low, then contact probably was out of the question. Even going to an IMF facility could have potentially compromised him," the Irish pilot suggested, but it wasn't more than a guess and almost immediately he contradicted himself with a sigh: "But then, if he wanted to hide, his cover was most likely already down the drain. And then he'd have been safer in a safe-house."

"Let's just stick with what we know," Ethan interrupted the wild guessing game. "Benji has been here. He left in a hurry. And while he was here, he most likely was working on his computer. Now we have to figure out where he has gone, and why."

"I think I can help with that," Luther said, taking out his phone. Tapping into the Wi-Fi would have been easier with a computer, but it would take him longer to get one up here, so this would have to do.

Ethan grinned back at him. "I hoped you would say that. How lo...?"

"Done," Luther interrupted him with a self-satisfied smile. "He has booked rooms in Vancouver and Portland. Each for two weeks straight from yesterday on. But he's not made any real travel arrangements, not from here anyway, so I can't tell you where he actually went."

"We could find that out at the airport," Declan put in, but Ethan shook his head.

"No, that would take too much time. We'll split up."

"There's a direct flight leaving for Portland with in the next half hour," Luther added, who had already thought in the same direction, and Ethan nodded in acknowledgement.

"Luther, you'll take that one. Dec, we'll find ourselves a plane and head for Canada."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Quickly Susan Tremaine skipped through the scarce information she had about her newest patient while walking down the corridor to the room where her colleagues had put him up. She had not expected to get someone so soon as Sunday late shifts were usually calm if nothing major had happened Saturday night and there hadn't been any new entries to her ward in the morning, but the early shift had already warned her that some emergency case had come in earlier this day who might be put under her care, so she was not overly surprised.

The man had been found in the more or less early hours of the morning by a student who had come home from a party night. He had been lying unconsciously in the staircase of the residential home where the paramedics had picked him up and brought into the clinic. There he had been diagnosed with several fractured ribs, a weird dislocation in his left wrist and a chip fracture in his right femur, caused by a bullet, among other smaller injuries, and after a little more than an hour of surgery and a few hours of follow up in Intermediate Care he was now to be transferred to her ward.

Jonathan Baker was a British citizen, according to his papers, some kind of IT-specialist who was in the States for business. And, Susan thought, he was extremely lucky. There seemed to be no organ trauma, no injury to any major artery, not even major structural damage to the fractured bone. The doctors had cleaned out the bone fragments and the bullet and stitched up the wound, the wrist had been set and put in a splint, and ribs had been secured with elastic bandaging. Most likely he would be able to stand up later on today already, or tomorrow morning at the latest. It looked like this shift was not going to get much more exciting after all.

Susan had already suspected that Mr. Baker had become the victim of a robbery or some other crime, one of the darker sides of the big city, and the police detail waiting in front of the room she was headed for told her that she hadn't been the only one thinking along those lines. The officers waited outside when she entered, and after she had dismissed the nurse from the other ward with a thankful nod, she was alone with her patient.

"Hello, Mr. Baker. I'm Susan Tremaine and I'll be your primary nurse," she introduced herself to the man who looked back with sleepy, and still slightly absent eyes, while she checked the wound dressings, drains, electrolyte infusion and pain medication. "You are in room 815 of the surgical ward of St. Michaels Hospital, Seattle."

"Julia?" The one, half whispered word came so unexpected that for a moment the nurse just stared at her patient wide-eyed, before her professionalism kicked back in.

"My name is Susan Tremaine," she repeated slightly louder and more slowly, just as the door opened and a doctor came in. He greeted Susan with a nod, then introduced himself as Dr. Walter Harrington and started to explain the finer details of his patient's injuries, the surgery and what was planned for the next few days.

The nurse only listened with half an ear. She couldn't imagine just how that man knew about... unless...

She had to stop herself from laughing out loud, when it occurred to her how obvious it was. The combination of 'British' and 'IT-specialist' had already made her smile when she had first read it, but back then she had thought it very improbable at the very least that she actually might accidentally run into someone she knew. But right now there was no other possibility and although she could see how she hadn't recognized him at first, she soon was sure that she was right.

The last three years had changed him quite a bit, his hair had grown longer and was pretty messed up right now, also it was darker than she remembered. Besides most of his face was covered in scratches, bruises and band-aid. But as soon as she knew what to look for, the gaze that more than once distractedly floated over to her was definitely familiar.

"So, unless any problems should come up until then, I'll check back with you tomorrow, Mr. Baker." Dr. Harrington ended his speech with a handshake, then turned to Susan, while he made his way to the door. "If anything happens, just give me a call, I'll still be in my office for a while, doing the paperwork. I'll let you know before I go home."

"Will do, doc," the nurse replied with a smile, before the chief surgeon left the room in a flurry of white lab-coat and she closed the door behind him. Then she turned around to her patient who eyed her more openly this time. "Benji."

"Julia." Just like she had, he formulated the name as a statement rather than a question, yet there was more than just a trace of curiosity in his voice, as well as some slight, remaining disorientation and resulting self-doubt, but that probably was still an after-effect of the anesthesia. "I'm not dreaming this. Am I?"

"You're not dreaming," she replied with a smile. There was absolutely no room left for any doubt about whom she was talking to.

Still the Brit seemed to be not entirely convinced yet. "Because – don't take this the wrong way, please – but as far as I know, you're supposed to be dead."

Julia looked down at her shoes for a moment, then she put down the papers she had been holding onto the table and leaned against the wall, burying her hands in the pockets of her lavender scrubs, before she looked back up. This was most likely going to be a longer conversation. "After what happened in Croatia, Ethan put me up in Witness Protection, and when rumors started going around, we just decided not to correct anyone."

"So you didn't actually split up?" he asked with his hopefully pleading puppy look. Julia chuckled at the question, and even more at the relieved look she got when she replied, "No, we're still together."

A short silence evolved after that, but it was less awkward than before. "So, I've heard you're a field agent now?" Julia asked after a while. Benji's face turned into something she didn't know how to interpret.

"Uh, yes," he said, and indicated a shrug. "But you see where it got me."

"What happened?" she asked, concern showing in her voice.

The agent thought for a moment, whether he should tell her, but then there really wasn't any reason why he shouldn't, after all, how much harm would it do? Also he had already noticed the officers outside, so the chance that something could happen were comparatively slim, and he really wanted to talk about it with someone. "I secured a device with some sensitive information from someone who really shouldn't have had it, but before I could get it back to D.C. someone was after me. I tried to evade them, but last night they finally got me."

"Let me guess, they wanted it back?" she asked, but Benji shook his head with a grin.

"Not quite. The folks I took it from most likely never actually knew that the thing was valuable. I bet you they're never going to notice it's missing anyway. No, those guys were sent by an interested third party. But I guess I'll be rid of them for now."

Julia wanted to go on, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. A couple of seconds later, a police officer looked into the room. "Excuse me," she asked, looking from one to the other. "The doctor said he was awake, and I wondered if I could have a word."

She looked at the patient, who nodded, so the nurse gave her approval, too. "Alright, but don't be too long," she said, picking up her papers, then turned to the Brit once more, before she left the room. "I'll look in on you again, later. If you need anything, just use one of those red buttons."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The Vancouver address was a shabby old hotel with a shabby old owner, who wasn't at all impressed by the two 'bloody Americans' and their shiny badges. Only the threat to bring in their Canadian colleagues and with them the Health and Safety Department, made him more cooperative.

As a result, the owner finally told them that Benji had indeed been around – not under his own name of course – and to his knowledge still was, but hadn't been seen since the day before. With a bit of incentive he let them into the room in question.

The room contained a double bed that might have passed as a single in better lodgings, and was decked in sheets with floral ornaments so colorful they would cover up just about any stains, next to a very large, dark, solid wood closet. In between there was just enough space to squeeze through, and the image was completed by carpeted floor that exhibited so many shades of dirty, it was hard to guess its original color. Clothing was scattered everywhere, except inside the closet and the empty bag in the corner next to the door. Among them was a small notebook computer and a small heap of chocolate bar wrappings.

"I guess we can be sure he's been here," Declan commented, lowering his gun after he had made sure the bathroom was empty. "And he left in a hurry."

"Yeah, but he surely didn't leave the room like this," Ethan replied and picked up a shirt that was lying discarded in a corner. For someone else it would have been a simple designer T-shirt with some random Chinese symbols on the front. But he knew by now that the writing had some special meaning for the techie, although he hadn't been able to grasp just what.

Leaving the Irishman to the closet, which turned out to be empty as well, Hunt proceeded to the computer. And cursed. "Someone's definitely been here. And they took the hard-drive," he stated dropping the empty husk. "I don't think we'll find anything worth looking for in here."

"What if Benji took it?" Gormley asked, hurrying to follow the other agent who was already out of the door again. "I don't think so," Ethan replied, heading straight down the stairs. "But I think I have a way of finding out."

He didn't slow down until he reached the run-down wooden bar that doubled as a reception desk. Leaning his full weight onto it he shot a threatening glance at the manager. "Who else was in that room?"

"Nobody," the man replied, but didn't dare to meet his gaze. Instead he looked at the other Agent for help, but Declan only shrugged. Meanwhile Hunt drew his gun and calmly set it onto the counter.

"Wrong answer," he stated and was about to ask his question again, when he heard a sound he could have gone well without.


	3. Chapter 2

Thanks a lot for the awesome reviews!  
Sorry, I'm a bit late this week, but studying has held me up.  
And now: Have fun! :)

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

Back in the nurses' room, Susan simply dropped the stack of papers on a free part of the desk. Absentmindedly she noticed the hand-held telephone lying around on the desk and put it in her pocket while she went searching for a chair. Before she had even settled down, Marry, her colleague came over the few feet from her work space and asked: "So how is our new patient?"

"He's alright, just came up from IMC, pain medication works out fine and I think if food agrees well with him later on, we can already try and get him up for the first time tonight," the primary nurse summed up the situation, but her associate rolled her eyes.

"That's not what I'm talking about. I mean what is he like? How old is he? Is he cute? Do you like him?"

Now it was Susan's turn to roll her eyes. "You do know that I have a boyfriend, right?" she asked her colleague, but Marry didn't seem to care.

"Oh, yeah. That federal guy who drops by every other month or so. I don't know how you can call that a relationship," she responded ironically. "What was his name? Wagner? Weston?"

"Webster," Susan corrected and suppressed a sigh as she read through the same line for the third time. "James Webster, and he's an FBI agent, not just some federal guy."

"And a pretty boy," Marry went on, standing up to store away a stray thermometer that had been lying on the desk. "I bet you he's got a girl in every town. He'd totally have me with that smile, I tell you. If he wasn't your guy, that is."

With a sigh she was no longer able to suppress, Susan ruled out what she had just written, but that didn't make her any happier with her work and so she took a new sheet of paper, while she decided that her love-life definitely wasn't the right topic now. Or ever, for that matter. "So how is it going with you and Grant?"

"Oh just don't ask," Marry replied as if she didn't want to talk about it, but in a way that made it unmistakably clear that actually she wanted to talk about it, especially with the way she started talking then, "I'm pretty sure he's hiding something from me. Most likely he has another girl, I'm certain he has. I bet it's that impossible secretary person who's working in his office, Jaquelin or Janessa, or whatever her name is..."

With a satisfied smile Susan tuned out of the conversation and finally concentrated on her paperwork. Sometimes it was amazing just how easily some people could be kept occupied, but like most diversions, this one also only worked for a limited time, until Marry decided to switch the topic: "So is it true he's British?"

"What? Who?" Susan was startled up from her papers and didn't immediately catch the other nurse's thread.

"The new patient who came in earlier," Marry answered, coming closer and looking over Susan's shoulder. "You know, I've heard that all British guys are cute, but I've never met one."

Irritated Susan pushed away her colleague and was about to give a snappy reply, when she heard the sound of a door. Looking up through the glass front of the nurses' room, she saw the police officer leaving the room in question, which gave her a better idea. "You know what, why don't you go have a look for yourself?"

"Are you sure? I mean, I'm the one who's got a boyfriend that's actually around," Marry asked carefully, although the glitter in her eyes told that in fact she was delighted by the idea.

Susan turned around to her colleague and nearly even put down her pen. "It's about time someone checked in on him again, and you're my associate nurse today. Besides it's not as if you got anything better to do right now and I still got to finish this paperwork. Now go, before I change my mind."

"As you wish," the associate nurse said and went out of the door and down the corridor, a big smile on her face.

With a disbelieving shake of her head, Susan focused her concentration back on the paperwork, and without any further distractions, after five more minutes she was done. Satisfied she looked through all the papers again to make sure she had everything she needed, when suddenly she could hear a shrill scream echoing down the hallway.

Immediately, Susan dropped the papers and rushed out of the nurses' room. The scream was still sounding from the direction of rooms 10 through 18, and she had a bad feeling she knew exactly where it was coming from. As soon as she was around the corner, she saw the forms of the officers lying motionlessly on the floor in front of room 815. Her first impulse was to speed up, but as soon as she noticed that the door of the room was open, she slowed down and made sure she wasn't seen from inside.

A sigh of relief escaped her lips when she noticed that the two policemen and their spokeswoman were still breathing, red feathery bushes standing out on their night-blue uniform jackets indicating that they had been shot with tranquilizer darts. Out of instinct rather than anything else, Julia bent down over the nearest of them and picked his gun out of the holster he hadn't even been able to reach for. In a move that had been practiced so long she hardly had to think about it anymore, she unlocked the safety of the nine-millimeter gun and made sure it was loaded before she ducked around the corner and into the room.

The first thing Julia noticed, when she entered the room, was Marry. Right then her colleague was hard to miss, for the younger nurse was still screaming in an unbelievably shrill and high-pitched voice at the top of her lungs. Standing in the middle of the almost square room, Marry partially covered the other nurse's view onto the single bed, but Julia saw enough of it to be sure that it was empty. If not the bleeping alert signals of several machines that was almost drowned out by Marry's voice – which was an astonishing feat of the junior nurse – would have suggested it anyway.

Yet the other woman was not looking at Julia, but at a man who was almost through the door to the neighboring room, which was usually locked. Most likely it had still been locked, for instead of opening it, someone had punched a hole through it. The man was clad completely in black, with a mask over his head, and he was wearing a gun.

All of this Julia noticed before she had even finished her first step into the room. With her second step, she had aimed her gun, and once fully through the doorway she pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet hit the goon's shoulder and he dropped the gun. The second bullet hit his knee and he dropped himself.

As effectively as the shots disabled the attacker, they silenced the second nurse, for now Marry turned around to Julia, her eyes and mouth wide open with shock, but not able to control her voice anymore. But the primary nurse, currently had other concerns. The sudden silence of her colleague not only made the beeps of the machines on the empty bed seem louder, she could also hear something that might have been a shout, had it not been muffled somehow, and footsteps from the adjoining room. Thankful that that room was empty, she ran over to the door stepping over the howling figure on the floor, but before she could get a good look at what was going on, something swished past her head and forced her to duck. When she dared to raise her head, the room was empty.

"Go back to our room, lock the door and call security," Julia ordered the other nurse, as she crossed back through the room, still ignoring the injured man on the floor and the beeping of various devices. Marry hadn't changed her position in any way other than following Julia with a dazzled, incredulous stare, and it took another "Go!" from her superior nurse to make her snap out of her trance enough to run down the corridor, back to the room she had earlier come from. Julia herself took the opposite direction, following the hallway that led to the foyer and elevators, where the friends of that strange, black-clad man must have gone.

She came around the corner just in time, to see some more black figures in front of one of the elevators, and just caught a hue of something white that might have been a hospital-issue dressing gown vanishing in it. But just as she spotted them, one of them spotted her, and soon enough two of the men were coming her way. Immediately, Julia ducked back around her corner and ran. She could hear the heavy footsteps behind her, and knew that it was only a matter of time until they would catch her, and in the broad, open corridors she was an easy target.

Still, she had the home advantage, and just in time a helpful door came her way. Almost missing it with her speed, she yanked open the door to the small storage room and slipped right through. She didn't wait to see if they would follow her, but crossed the small room on top speed and went right out on the other side, into the main storage of this level. Slowing down a little, she left this larger room again, into the foyer, which was now empty.

Crossing the hall, she then opened the door to a room that actually belonged to another ward. It was an office, an office with a hardly known door, unseen from the entrance, for it was half-covered by a bookshelf. The door led to a small, now unused shower room, which had another door that led out into the other ward, but always was locked from the inside. A well-known short-cut among the hospital personnel, but almost impossible to find for anyone who didn't know it was there.

For a moment Julia just stood there, leaning against the tiled wall in the half-light of an old, uncovered light-bulb, and listened if any of her pursuers might have noticed and followed her. But all stayed silent and so she slowly relaxed a little, sliding down the wall, as her legs gave way with the fading adrenaline rush.

Sitting on the cold stone floor, she thought about what to do next. She would be safe here, for now. No one could come in here unless they had hospital keys and then they'd have to know she was here, first. But that meant that unless she wanted to risk to be either captured or shot by those men in black, she had to stay in here. She could be pretty sure that Marry had followed her advice and called hospital security, for what it was worth. Still, she had a feeling that they, and even the police they would surely call, did not stand a chance against these hostiles. And especially now that they had Benji, she couldn't just leave it to the local authorities, but to call someone she had to leave her little hiding place. Unless...

With a sigh of relief, she felt the dent in her pocket that was the bulky hand-held part of the ward's telephone. She had put it into her scrubs earlier so she didn't have to go back to the nurses' room every time it rang. With still shaking fingers she stiffly typed in the number she had learned by heart and waited for a reply.

After five beeps she started counting the seconds.

After half a minute she looked on her watch.

After forty-two seconds a computer-voice told her that the person she was calling was not available and she should try again later. Blankly Julia stared at the phone in her hands as what had seemed to be the best idea of the day suddenly vanished into thin air. She felt like she wanted to cry.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Lines of alphanumeric characters slowly scrolled over the screen, forming rows of combinations incomprehensible to anyone who didn't at least have a basic understanding in programming. And even understanding what was written there, did not yet mean one would also understand what it really meant.

Luther's problem was a bit of a different one, as he looked over the lines of code over and over again. The file this code belonged to, was the only thing on a flash-drive that had been sent to the hotel Benji had booked in Portland, to the alias the reservation had been made out to. Only Benji himself had never arrived at the hotel to pick it up. It had been sent from Bozeman, Montana, where he had started out, so most likely the Brit had sent it there himself as some sort of contingency plan, which would mean it was somehow important. Only Luther couldn't see how.

The only thing he had found there was a simple executive file that opened an elaborate but still rather pointless calculator program. It looked like the work of a bored student, especially as it was written entirely in Java, a language no good developer would ever use if he was sane, but which was very often used by beginners, simply because it was easy.

By now Luther had also begun to suspect that it might be computer generated, because the tightly packed lines of code did not seem to have any order at all, but that could as well have been a beginners mistake. In no way did it resemble anything of what he had seen of Benji's work so far, and he couldn't see just what might make this file so important, or even in any way relevant, but he had a bad feeling that he was missing something. With a sigh he decided he would have to go through it very slowly, and get some structure into this unordered mess before he could find anything, when his phone rang.

"Yes?" Luther answered more annoyed than he had wanted to, but after a one-hour flight to a boring city for a more or less fruitless search, and at least another hour of trying to make any sense of the only hint he had found, everything else was rather hard. He had contemplated not answering at all, the number did not match any of the contacts saved in his phone and he didn't recognize it either, but the area code put it somewhere on the upper west coast of the US.

That meant, it could very well be one of the others, or even Benji. And that they were calling him directly from some public phone would indicate that most likely there was some kind of trouble. But the voice that answered was not one of his fellow agents, it was a female voice, unexpectedly familiar and somewhat shaky. The speaker was not panicking, but definitely shocked. "Luther? This is Julia!"

Luther's eyes narrowed, shifting the writing on his screen out of focus. "Julia who?" he asked promptly, although he already had a suspicion. A suspicion of something that, as far as he knew, just couldn't be. But then he had seen more than a few impossible things in his time with the IMF.

"Julia Hunt," the woman replied, articulating both words carefully. But then, Luther had known that already. After all, how many other Julias were there who knew his private phone number. And yet, it had been three years. If Julia was really still alive, he surely would have heard something in that time.

"That's impossible." he replied. "Because if you are who you say you are, then I know for a fact that you are dead."

"I know. I mean..." There was a pause on the other end and Luther could hear her take a deep breath. "I can explain this, everything. But there's no time. Strange men have been here, and they took Benji. They almost got me, too, and I can't reach Ethan or ..."

"Hold on, you know where Benji is?" Luther interrupted her rapid, breathless explanation. That he finally had a lead to the other technician, and one at that, that might lead him directly to him, which was something he wouldn't even have dared dreaming off, suddenly made him not care anymore whether or not he was talking to a ghost.

"Yes, he's here." Julia replied. "Or at least was until those men came."

"Where?" the agent asked. Of course he could have easily tried to trace the call, but this was decidedly easier.

"St. Michaels Hospital, Seattle," she replied with a mental face-palm. Of course he was the only one who still didn't know where she was. "Eighth floor, surgical ward."

Luther refrained from asking just what Benji had been doing there, and instead looked up the address on his phone. "OK. Are you safe?"

"I'm in a storage room," the nurse answered, not knowing how else to describe her current situation. "It's hard to find and locked from the inside."

"Alright, hang in there. I'll be there in an hour," Luther replied, packing up his equipment. "And in the meantime you can tell me all about what has happened in detail."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Julia didn't know how much time had passed, since Luther had ended the call. In the time they had been talking, she had explained everything, starting with how Ethan had set her up in the hospital, up to the little she knew of what had happened to Benji. After that the agent had hung up. He wanted to try to reach Ethan again, who obviously was currently looking for Benji, too, and would call again for directions once he was in the clinic.

With a sigh she shifted her legs into a more comfortable position. The floor was hard and there was nothing else to sit on, but she didn't dare to leave the room, even into the more comfortable office next door. She knew that there was nothing more she could do, up until Luther arrived and tried to get her thoughts off the topic, yet they always seemed to come back to Benji and what those guys who had kidnapped him would want from him.

With an effort she forced herself to think of her other patients, trying to make a mental list of all the things that still needed to be done and putting them into an order and time-frame in which she would do them, although she knew that there would be nothing normal about this shift anymore, when she heard something outside. Instinctively she reached for the gun that was still lying next to her and pointed it a the door that was kicked in the next moment without even the effort of trying to open it manually.

Several men and women rushed into the small room, several more waiting outside. All were wearing black bulletproof vests with either Police or FBI written on, and armed with handguns or assault rifles. Overwhelmed, Julia slowly lowered her own weapon, when she heard a familiar voice from the back of the crowd. "Sue?"

Surprised the nurse looked in the direction where the voice had come from. Only a handful of people used that abbreviation of her cover name and one of them was Peter Mason, head of the clinic's security staff, who was now working his way towards her. Although with his slightly over six feet of height he was gradually blocking her view on the others, she could now also identify a couple of his people in the black vests. "Are you alright? What happened? What are you doing here? And where did you get that gun?"

Still slightly too perplexed to answer any of those questions right away, Julia still tried to sort her reply into a coherent order, when Mason was interrupted by a woman in an FBI vest who was obviously in charge. With a nod, she ordered the other men out, which immediately made the room less crowded, before she gently pushed the upset man aside. "Sir, I think you should give the lady some room."

The FBI agent had a fluffy blond ponytail and a soft, yet determined voice, and once Mason had reluctantly stepped aside, she turned a friendly, but professional face at the nurse, who was still sitting on the floor. "Susan Tremaine, I presume?" she asked, kneeling down to get more level. When the other woman nodded, she continued, "I'm Rachel Parker from the FBI. Mr. Mason called the police, who informed us and we are handling the situation now."

Slowly the nurse nodded again, understandingly. She didn't know if that really improved the general situation, but at least the FBI was better than any local police.

Carefully Rachel stretched out her hand. "Would you please give me your gun?" she asked next, and when Julia did not immediately react, she added, "You're going to be safe now. We're going to take care of you."

For a moment the nurse hesitated, but then she didn't see any reason why she should keep it any longer and handed it to Parker, who secured it and handed it off into the background. "Good," she said, still in that kind of motherly voice, as if talking to some violent crackpot, but then she got a little more comradely. "Do you think you can stand up?"

"Yes," Julia replied getting up silently but more steadily than she had expected, although she noticed only then that her legs were shaking. With a friendly and slightly admiring smile, Special Agent Parker led her out of the small room and through the office into the hall. Someone threw a blanket over her shoulder, and she gratefully accepted it, although she was not entirely sure if she needed it. At the very least it gave her something to hold onto.

Passing through the office, she caught a concerned glance from Peter Mason. "Don't worry, Pete. I'm alright," she tried to assure him with a small smile, and when that didn't seem to help, she truthfully added, "I've been through worse."

Mason, who together with the chief surgeon was one of the very few people who knew about her past, at least in so far that she had been in Witness Protection, only looked more concerned, while a lot of other men and women around her gave her weird glances. She didn't care. Julia knew that she _had_ been through worse. And she had gotten out of it. If nothing else, this statement had been to reassure herself.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

The silent click of a demonstratively loaded gun had been hardly audible above their heated conversation, yet the agents' trained ears easily picked it up among the background noise. Slowly Declan turned around, and Ethan followed his example, holding his gun low in the least threatening way possible, but without any intention of putting it down.

Behind them two tall men and one equally tall and very sturdy woman blocked the entrance, while another man and woman moved over to the stairs, effectively blocking them in. Each was armed with a .9 semi-automatic. The agents gave each other a quick glance, but although they were slightly surprised, with an underlying tension of readiness, the edge in Ethan's voice was something more like annoyance. "And who might you be?"

"Where is the disc?" One of the men at the door took a step forward, without lowering his weapon.

Ethan raised one eyebrow in a half-mocking gesture. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"The list," the goon pressed on, moving forward another step. He was over a head taller than the agent, so the barrel of his gun was now aimed point blank at Ethan's face.

Hunt gave it a short cross-eyed look. "I don't know about any disc. And I don't know about any list," he said calmly, then glanced at his partner. "Do you?"

"Nope," the Irishman said just as calmly.

The man made a noise that resembled something like a snarl. "Give me the list," he repeated, articulating the order word by word. The goon thumbed off the security on his gun, and both agents tensed simultaneously. There was a hardly visible nod from Ethan, before he suddenly lunged forward, dodging the gun and ramming his shoulder into the spokesman. Once past him, he took aim on the two still guarding the door.

Declan reacted almost in the same instant, pulling the gun from the guy who had spoken, even before Ethan was past him, and turned on the ones at the stairs. Yet he hadn't been as quick as he had hoped. A bullet grazed his left arm, before he could take aim properly, and what he had hoped to handle with two clean shots turned a bit messy, but before either of his adversaries had a chance to land another hit they were both properly taken care of.

Ethan had disposed of the two goons at the door much in the same way, and walked back to their spokesman. The man had managed to get back onto his two feet, but before he could launch any kind of counter-attack, Ethan's fist sent him straight back to the floor. "Now I'm going to ask you a question," he said, setting one foot onto the goon's chest and aiming his gun straight at his face. "Where is the hard-drive?"

The man bared his teeth in an ugly grin and Ethan put a bit more weight onto his right foot, when the sound of a door distracted him. Looking for where the sound had come from, both agents realized there was a back door behind the bar. And the bartender was gone.


	4. Chapter 3

And it continues.  
Thanks to everyone still along.  
And sorry these chapters are always so long, but it's hard chopping things up into smaller pieces.  
The good news is that with the number wise, this chapter is halfway point!

That being said: Have fun! :)

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

Instead of bringing her back to her ward, the Police officers and FBI Agents escorted the nurse to the small office of the security staff three levels below. During their walk, most of her escort spread out, joining others she saw already patrolling the hallways and standing guard along the corridors. Although the number of people in the clinic had most likely doubled in the last hour, the hospital seemed weirdly empty, even for a Sunday afternoon.

By the time they entered the small room, she was accompanied only by Mason, Parker and two of her men, who waited outside, as well as Dr. Harrington who had joined them somewhere along the way. Most likely they wouldn't have managed to fit in anyway, for the few chairs underneath the rows of CCTV monitors were occupied by the three police officers and two of the security staff, the latter of which were waved out of the room by their boss as Julia stepped in.

"I believe you have already met Lieutenant Sharron Evans from the Seattle police, and these are her colleagues, Sergeants David Thompson and Joshua DuMorne," Rachel introduced the nurse to the officers. "Gentlemen, this is Susan Tremaine, currently most likely our most important witness. Miss Tremaine, please have a seat. It would be a great help to us if you could tell us everything that happened, in as much detail as possible. I'm afraid the account of your colleague did not yield much information."

Julia fought hard not to smile at that as she took a free chair next to the police lieutenant. She could vividly imagine Marry's overly excited and most likely incoherent tale of the past one and a half hours. As she rightly assumed, Evans had already told their version of the official part of Benji's story, so she skipped that part and started her report at the moment when she had found the three unconscious officers. She told everything up to the point where the FBI had found her, leaving out only a few minor details, which no one seemed to notice. Several times she was almost interrupted, but each time the special agent made sure she would continue and questions be asked later.

After she had finished her tale, there was a short silence, while Agent Parker took some final notes on the notepad she had been scribbling on most of the time. She could see the others were anxious to question her, but by now they had all accepted that it was the woman from the FBI who ran this show. After a short pause, she looked up from her notes. "Do you know Mr. Baker?"

"Yes." Julia decided to answer truthfully, but she felt that it needed a bit more explanation. The only question was, how much she could tell her, but she thought that if she would stick to her official cover story, it would be alright. "That is, I... I'm in the Witness Protection Program," she continued, sorting her words carefully.

The reactions she elicited with that were mixed. Both the chief surgeon and the head of security were respectively staring at the piece of desk or floor in front of them, but then they were about the only once who knew that part of her official cover story. The FBI agent looked surprised, but not overly shocked, while the three police officers' facial expressions were indescribable. "I knew Mr. Baker before I came here," she continued. "Only back then I knew him under a different name. I didn't know it was him until I saw him."

There was a pause while Special Agent Parker took some more notes. The federal agent was now commanding the room completely. "From what you told us, it was you who shot the one of the kidnappers, twice," she continued, eying up Julia more closely. "I have to say that even at ten feet distance that was quite an impressive shot, especially with a moving target."

"I did have some practice," the nurse admitted, slowly becoming a little more uncomfortable, but before anyone could say something else, the door opened. In came one of the FBI agents, accompanied by someone nobody recognized. Nobody but Julia.

"We picked him up at the gate. He wants to talk to you," the man told Parker, obviously uneasy in the company of the other man, who was a full head taller and had an air of utter self-confidence about him. The newcomer took a quick look around the room, hinting a nod at the nurse and finally rested his gaze on the blond lady standing in front of him, arms crossed. She was slightly smaller than the man who had escorted him up, yet decidedly less impressed.

"You're in charge?" he asked in a deep baritone, with an underlying tone of self-assuredness, and a bit of threat.

"Rachel Parker, FBI," she replied without making the effort to show him any identification. "And you are?"

"Jack Marsh, FBI," the man answered just as coldly, with no attempt to show her any ID on his part either, but she decided the golden badge pinned to his belt, half covered by an obviously made-to-measure jacket, would suffice for now.

"Where from?" Agent Parker asked on, meeting his gaze without fear and returning it with equal intensity.

He stared back without wavering. "D.C. office."

Rachel raised an eyebrow. Marsh didn't sound very much like east coast and definitely not D.C. She would have placed him somewhere further west. Not a coastal area, probably Idaho. But she decided not to question that for now. "That's quite a way to travel," she stated defensively. "May I ask what brings you onto my turf?"

"Listen, lady. We may be on your turf, but this is my case," the other agent replied and instantly Parker's second eyebrow joined the first.

"How so?"

The man clenched his teeth, and for a moment Rachel thought he'd be going for the hard way, but then he nodded. "Can we talk somewhere? In private?" he asked, nodding at the many people in the room.

"Alright," the woman agreed. "There's a kitchen right across the floor." With another nod, the man turned around and Rachel left the room behind him. Yet before she entered the other door, she turned to the man who had escorted up their visitor. "Mike, do me a favor and run that guy through the database."

"I already have," the younger agent replied, suddenly a shade paler. "In general he checks out alright."

Parker could have heard there was something more to this, even if she hadn't thought so already. "But?"

"I can't access any of the details. Everything that includes any information beyond the very basic stuff is way above our pay grade."

"Alright," Rachel said with a silent curse. She had had a feeling that there was something up with Mr. Marsh, but this new development only left her more suspicious without giving her anything to work on. "See if you can get your hands on anything. Meanwhile I'll have a chat with our guest."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"Stop it, or you'll drown him. He's no use to us dead."

The words needed a while to settle into Benji's mind through a haze of partially drug-induced sleepiness and slowly but gradually growing sense of pain. Clenching his teeth, he carefully took a deep breath, and regretted it immediately as his rib-cage replied with the sharp sting of broken bones.

The pain at least managed to shove away the last mists of sleep, although they were replaced by a throbbing headache that didn't help at all to sort the bits and pieces of memory that were now flooding his mind. He had been chased. Through Seattle. There was the disc and...

Julia!

With a sudden flash of adrenaline surging through his system, mingled with shock and concern, he opened his eyes to look around. And closed them again, just to curse himself for his own stupidity. Three men were standing a little way off, talking to one another, and he realized that they had to think he was still unconscious. Or rather had been. If one of them had spotted his little movement...

"He's not a lot of use to us either, as long as he doesn't talk. And he can't talk unless he's awake," a second voice said. Like the other one it was male, with a weird, heavy accent Benji couldn't identify.

"But he'll never talk if he's dead," a third voice grumbled. It was deeper than the other two, and obviously annoyed. "You knocked him out, so you see that he's going to be awake. And alive."

Benji suppressed a sigh of relief. They hadn't seen him, so whatever he was going to do, he still had surprise on his side. Only half listening to the rest of the conversation, he quickly went through what he knew. From the short glance he had had of his surroundings, he knew the room he was in was kind of big, but he was lying next to a wall. The three guys were standing further down that wall in a corner.

He was not lying on the floor, but on something soft, covered in a weird kind of crumbly plastic sheet. Thinking about it, he realized that it had to be a bed, and that there had been dozens more to his right where the room had seemed to continue almost endlessly. He had to be still in the hospital, in some kind of storage room.

And obviously in the basement, for it was horribly cold. The fact that he was positively drenched most likely had something to do with that as well. It had obviously taken the goons a while to realize ice-water wouldn't get them anywhere.

The freezing temperatures also meant that he had to move quickly, before his teeth started clattering with the cold and would give him away. He knew that most likely there were more of the goons around somewhere, but so far as he could make out, there were only the three in the room with him right now. If he managed to surprise them and take them out quickly, maybe he could keep the surprise effect for the next ones he encountered. Also they were armed, which made the whole idea a bit more risky in the beginning, but also would get him an advantage once he managed to get out of here. His chances weren't even that bad, he mused, in his quick glimpse he had seen a door right behind the trio. And a bright red box right next to it.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"So, let's talk." FBI Agent Rachel Parker was leaning against the wall in the little room the security staff called kitchen, but that most certainly didn't deserve the name. A toaster, a water kettle and a microwave oven, next to a small sink and underneath cupboards of coffee mugs, were the only things that revealed its purpose.

"Susan Tremaine is a protected witness." Luther looked over the woman more closely as he revealed that information. She was a bit taller than the average woman, although not much, with athletic, but not too muscular built and blond-brown hair with a hint of waviness bound back into a straight ponytail. And she looked generally pissed, which was understandable given the circumstances. He knew, he would be, too. "And so is Jonathan Baker. I'm one of their contacts."

"I know," she replied, unimpressed. "Miss Tremaine told us that just before you came in. The question is, who are the people we are after, and what do they have to do with your two witnesses."

"That is something we don't know," Marsh admitted. "As far as we can tell, there's no connection to the previous case. I don't know what Baker got himself into, but most likely it has been sheer coincidence that he met Miss Tremaine here now. There is no way they could have known about each other. And I don't think they were after the nurse, either. Although they might be now, after she's seen them."

To Rachel that seemed to be a logical enough explanation. She had already gathered that much from what little the nurse had told her about the matter. She had no idea how her Washington colleague knew so much about what had happened here, but decided not to question that. Right now there was something that bothered her more.

"What about that previous case?" she asked and the man's face went dark.

"I can't tell you anything more about that," he said, and Rachel wasn't really surprised. But when he saw the mix of growing annoyance and disappointment on that matter, he at least added, "Listen, I'm sorry. I'm already holding my neck out pretty far here, but I think this is stuff you should know. Anything else, not so much. This is way larger than you think and you would only get in over your head."

The FBI agent looked increasingly unhappy, but in the end she nodded. "Alright," she agreed with a sigh. "We'll work on a need-to-know basis. But as soon as I need to know, you tell me."

"Fine with me," Marsh replied. "Then first of all I need to know, what's the current situation."

The FBI agent frowned at his way of turning their conversation around on her, but then she nodded. "We believe the hostage is still in the building, along with at least five of the kidnappers. We've got people in all of the wards, the kitchen, the OR, and basically anywhere were we need to keep hospital staff. It's easier than evacuating the whole hospital, which frankly would take up too much time," she explained. "But we're set up to evacuate sectors into adjacent areas if necessary. And from the ground we've covered, it seems the kidnappers retreated into the basement."

"What's down there?" Marsh asked, a question Rachel had anticipated.

"Mostly storage areas, some IT and other technical rooms. All facilities where there wouldn't be anyone around on a Sunday afternoon. We're trying to make a plan to charge, but it's quite a large area and with patrols on all wards, we're stretched pretty thin on manpower."

"How many hostiles are we talking about?" he continued asking and the woman gave him a dry half-smile. He sure wasn't wasting any time.

"Your witness said that there were at least six or seven. That other nurse, Marry Briggs, said it had been more, but although I don't really think her account is accurate, we believe it is possible that there are more of them around. We're currently assuming there are between ten and fifteen of them," she explained. "We do have one of them in custody. But before you ask, Tremaine shot him pretty badly, and he's just been through surgery, so I don't think he's gonna give us any valuable information any time soon."

"I see," the other agent replied, and for a moment Agent Parker thought she saw something like pride flicker in his eyes. "Looks like this is not gonna be easy. I think we can come up with something here, though, if..."

Marsh was interrupted by a knock on the door that was quickly followed by the head of the junior FBI agent called Mike peeking through. "Sorry to interrupt you," he said, and he seemed to sincerely mean it, for when his senior agent threw him a glance he almost instinctively ducked. "But there's something I think you'll want to see."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"Shit!" Declan cursed.

Ethan didn't even bother to check if the door was locked. In a single move, he slid across the bar and kicked in the flimsy piece of wood-painted chip-board. The back door lead into a short alleyway behind the hotel, which lead onto a broader but only slightly less dirty street. He only stopped a moment to see which way his target had gone, before he broke into a run after him, the other agent close on his heels.

The bartender was not very tall and on the portly side, but he was astonishingly fast, using his knowledge of the place by ducking in and out of rather more than less filthy side-streets. Yet the almost empty streets also worked in the agents' favor and soon enough they were catching up.

"Stop!" Ethan yelled, when their target came into view, but before he could get into a position that would allow him a clear shot, the man ducked around a corner again.

His gun in hand, the agent kept running, closing the distance to the man with every step. The man kept dodging left and right, keeping him from using his firearm, but it didn't take long, until Hunt had caught up with the bartender. Before his victim could evade him, he tackled him down out of a full run.

Although he was breathing hard, the heavy-set man tried to fight, but Ethan had him in an iron grip, and Declan was right behind him, his weapon already trained on the bartender. "Where is the hard-drive?" he asked, completely calm.

The man's face, already pink with exertion, grew a shade darker. "Inside pocket," he huffed in single words, breathing heavily.

Without loosing his grip, Ethan made him turn around and thrust one hand under the man's jacket, until his fingers fastened around the plastic casing. Carefully he retrieved it and passed it to his partner before turning back at his victim.

"And the man we're looking for, where is he?" he asked a razor sharp edge in his otherwise deadly calm voice.

"I don't know," the bartender replied immediately. His face turned scarlet, when Ethan tightened one hand above his throat and his breath quickened so much, the agent almost feared he'd have a heart attack. "Really," he gasped, "I didn't even know he wasn't still here. I swear!"

The agent decided that this was as much as he was going to get out of the man and stood up. He waited, until the bartender had scrambled to his feet, then delivered a knock-out punch that sent him right back to the floor. Stepping over the unconscious man, he walked back to Declan.

"Benji is not going to like this," the Irishman commented, holding up the hard-drive. The casing was cracked, cobweb like fissures running outward from the middle. The whole disc was bent and something rattled suspiciously with every movement.

"Maybe Luther can still make something of it," Ethan replied sourly and fished his phone out of his pocket.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Rachel almost couldn't believe her eyes, when she stepped out into the corridor and saw the man standing between two of her agents. She doubted that anyone could be more out of place next to the men wearing black bulletproof vests and assault guns. Everything he wore seemed to be expensively tailored, from the impossibly polished black shoes to the light blue shirt, the gray suit, including an unbelievably pretentious waistcoat, and the matching gray-and-blue striped tie.

The man was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, his face almost expressionless in a way of calm annoyance that bordered boredom, not even trying to conceal the gun on his belt. The only thing odd was his brown hair, which he had stacked up to a slightly untidy faux hawk that just didn't seem to fit the rest of the assembly. But all in all he looked like someone who didn't get out of his office a lot.

"Mike, who in God's name is that clown?" Parker asked her junior agent, but before he could reply, the man in the suit picked himself off the wall and answered himself.

"William Brandt, CIA."

"Rachel Parker, FBI, this is my colleague, Special Agent Jack Marsh," Rachel answered coldly, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice. "If you would be so kind to tell me just what..."

"He's with us," Marsh interrupted her, before she could finish her question. Disbelieving, Agent Parker half turned, but not enough to miss the questioningly raised eyebrow Mr. Brandt directed at her involuntary partner. "We've worked with him before. Since Mr. Baker is a British citizen, the CIA like to keep themselves in the loop," Agent Marsh explained almost apologetically. "If you give me a few minutes with him alone, I'll clear this up."

With a defeated sigh, Parker nodded and waved at the kitchen door. Although there was something weird about Marsh she couldn't really place, he seemed to be a decent sort, and at the very least it would get the two of them out from under her nose for a while. Marsh returned a grateful nod, then disappeared into the kitchen behind the CIA agent. Brandt was already inside, leaning against the wall.

"So what the hell are you doing here?" Luther asked a bit harsher than he had intended and lowered his voice slightly as he continued, "I don't remember calling an analyst."

"That's because you didn't. But someone did," Brandt replied with the same amount of sarcasm, then his voice softened. "I was in LA, official business, when I got a call from here. I couldn't take it at the time, but when I saw it later, I called back but got no answer. So I decided to put in a little detour on the way back."

Luther raised an eyebrow. He knew the analyst had been in LA, so that much of the story was true, but something put him off. Until it dawned on him: "You knew about Julia."

The analyst bit his lip and avoided the agents gaze, but nodded. "I was there in Croatia. Ethan found out and after India he told me that she was here. I guess it was his way of kicking my ass back into the field."

Luther looked at him for a moment, but then nodded. It wasn't his fault after all, and he could beat Ethan up about it later. Just as he finished that thought, his phone rang as if right on cue. "Yes?"

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"Luther? I think we found something that might help us locate Benji," Ethan explained right away. "But we'd need your help to make it work."

"I think I got one better," Luther replied. "I found Benji. But he's caught up in a sort of hostage situation."

"What?" Ethan shot back. "Where are you?"

"St. Michaels Hospital, Seattle," Luther replied and Ethan didn't have the time to registered the slight edge of sarcasm, because he was occupied with the thoughts that suddenly started racing through his mind. "Julia," he started. "She's working there. She is..."

"She is with me and she's fine," Luther answered and this time the other agent noticed the cold bite in his voice.

"I'm sorry," Ethan sighed apologetically. "I guess I should have told you."

"Like hell you should have," Luther replied, but then his voice softened. "Anyway, I think you better come here quickly. The FBI are handling the hostage situation, but they're more than a bit thin stretched. Brandt just showed up and we're keeping an eye on the situation, but we could use the extra pair of hands."

"Alright, we're coming," Ethan responded and hung up. Then he turned to Declan, who regarded him with a questioning face. "I'll tell you on the way," he promised. "How quickly can you get us to Seattle?"

"An hour, maybe two," the Irishman said with a shrug. "Depends on the transport."

Ethan nodded. "Then I guess we'll just have to get ourselves another plane."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Benji didn't know how long it had taken, but at some point the two men had picked up their conversation again. And then they had just left. He couldn't believe his luck, but waited until he was sure that the door was closed before he moved off the bed. He felt slightly dizzy as he stood up and a sharp pain erupted in his right leg, but he knew it would carry his weight. Everything else would have to be unimportant for now.

Quickly he took another look around. He was indeed in a sort of storage room, rows of bare beds in plastic sheets lining the wall. Slightly disappointed he noted that there was nothing he could have used as a weapon. Not even a blanket, he could use to keep himself warm.

With a sigh he turned towards the door, just when he heard voices in the corridor growing louder. Quickly he stepped behind the door and just an instant after, it burst open. "Idiots! Both of you," the voice of the third man shouted. The man it belonged to was of average height and not very remarkable in any other way either. "You utterly useless, brain-dead m..." He cried at the top of his lungs, before he was silenced by Benji's right arm coming down on the base of his skull.

The other two were taller, one of them pretty bulky, too. But both of them seemed to be more on the slow side, for the agent had already taken down one with a well-aimed knee in his mid-riff, when the third decided to come at him. Benji only just managed to dodge the first two swipes, but on the third he ducked, which sent the goon's blow into the concrete wall. While his adversary was howling in pain, Benji made sure his head took the same way his hand had and a moment later the third man was lying on the floor unconscious, too.

Quickly, he picked up the goon's gun, then hit the fire alarm next to the door. Nothing happened, at least not what he had thought would happen, he qualified his thought. Just then he noticed that number two was getting back on his feet. He wanted to knock him back out right away, but then he sized him up with one look and decided differently. "I need your clothes, your boots and your weapon," he said. The man only stared. Benji demonstratively loaded the gun he had just picked up. "Now."


	5. Chapter 4

Thanks to all who are still along for the Ride!  
And special thanks for those awesome reviews!

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

"He wants to stay," Luther announced as he and Brandt rejoined the FBI agents in the security office. "But he's promised to stay out from underfoot."

"That's just as well," Rachel Parker replied, then sighed. "I think we can actually use your help Mr. Brandt. Mike tells me you are an analyst?"

Brandt raised an eyebrow at the implication that she had looked at his file, but then just ignored that, as well as the slight edge with which she pronounced the word 'analyst'. "Yes," he simply answered and waited for her to give him more information to work with.

Agent Parker nodded and led them over to a wall that was basically one huge schematic of the building with lots of glowing lights on it. "This is the basement," she said, pointing at one. "We are pretty sure that our kidnappers have to be somewhere there, but the area is huge and for the most part there's no one there on Sundays. And with all the people I need to keep posted around the building, I only have ten guys left. With that kind of area to cover, we could be playing hide-and-seek for ages. Also I think that they want your guy Baker alive, but there's no telling what might happen, if they get scared, or think they don't need him anymore."

Brandt nodded thoughtfully, regarding the schematic. "You are sure they are still in the building?"

"There is no way they could have gone out," it was Peter Mason, the Chief of Security, who answered. "All the doors are locked from the inside, or there would have been people around who would have seen them. There are a few emergency exits, but if they'd have used those, the alarm would have gone off. And there's pretty much nowhere else they could have gone inside the building without anyone noticing."

"So, what is actually down there?"

"Storage areas mainly," Mason continued, pointing to different areas. "Cleaning and waste disposal facilities, and the kitchen,"

"And there is nobody there now?"

"No, the storages aren't staffed on weekends. The cleaning staff usually leaves around twelve on Sundays, the kitchen staff by two."

"How can we get there?

"There's the main elevator here," he pointed at it. "That's the one they took. The staircase ends on the ground floor, but there's a cargo here in the storage area and also a loading ramp. And an emergency exit accessible from the outside about here."

Brandt nodded, and was about to ask another question, when he suddenly pointed at something. "What's that light here?"

Mason furrowed his brow. "Actually, that's a fire alarm."

The FBI agents suddenly grouped more tightly around them. "That wasn't there before, I swear," a young agent put in and Brandt agreed, "It wasn't, only just came on."

"Does that mean we have a fire on our hands now, too?" Parker asked slightly exasperated. The security chief tapped at the light then shrugged. "I don't think so. You see, that's a manual fire alarm. If there was a real fire, the smoke and heat detectors would have gone off, too. But they didn't."

"Where is that?" Luther asked.

"Bed storage and laundry," Mason answered.

Rachel Parker looked at him doubtfully. "You think they are there?"

"Fact is, someone must have pushed that fire alarm," Brandt stated. "And there's no one else in that area who could have. Now they most likely haven't spread out too far, so we can take that as a starting point. Of course that's only speculation, but the longer we wait the greater the chance that they're everywhere but there."

"How do we get there?" Luther asked on.

"Main elevator ends here," Mason pointed out, indicating a spot not far from the red light.

"Which would get us straight where they went," Rachel put in.

Luther frowned. "And probably straight into a trap, too."

"What about other ways down?" Brandt put in. "Staircases? Ventilation shafts?"

He got slightly weird glances from the others for his last comment, but just shrugged and the security chief continued: "The staircase ends on the ground floor. There's a service elevator here, but that's on the other end of the building. As is the loading ramp"

"Looks like we don't have a choice," Parker murmured, visibly unhappy with that solution.

"There might be another way," someone said and everyone turned around in surprise to look at the nurse. "The car park begins here. There's an emergency exit connecting it with the corridor. It's usually open, because people like to use it as a shortcut." Julia tapped on the relating spots on the map, as she spoke.

"We go in from there and some of your guys from the loading ramp. They'll have nowhere to run," Luther said matter of fact.

"Box them in," Parker said appreciatively.

"Let's go, then," Brandt decided and turned to Julia. "Can you show us the way?"

The nurse nodded and the two agents went after her immediately.

"Wait, don't you want to wear vests?" Parker called after them.

"No time," Brandt called back, and shaking her head, the FBI agent beckoned her men to follow the weird trio.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

It took Benji considerably longer than he liked, to get out of the wet dressing gown and hospital shirt, but he was even more glad once he was in the dry clothes he had acquired from the goon who was now lying on the floor just as unconscious as his colleagues. Just somewhat more naked. Their clothing seemed to be some standardized paramilitary stile, because they were all wearing the same kind of black cargo-trousers and button-down shirt. Just as well for him, Benji thought, because although the clothes were slightly too large – their previous owner was roughly the same size, but more strongly built – at least they were comfortable.

He didn't get to put on the shirt, because just as he pulled the belt tight, he heard footsteps outside in the corridor. Benji threw the shirt over his shoulder and picked up the gun, deciding to leave the boots after all. He positioned himself behind the door, hardly a second too early, for another man came storming in, wildly shouting something, the language of which he could not identify, but which had to be a curse of some sort.

Benji made sure there was no one else coming in, then he took down the man with the tranquilizer gun that he had acquired from his colleagues and with which he had also taken care of the owner of his new clothing. Four down, he thought, and tried to remember just how many there had been, but found he simply didn't know. He checked the man for weapons, but saw that he, too, was only armed with tranquilizers. If that was true for all of them, at least the worst thing they could do was knock him out again.

While he tucked one gun into the back of his belt, he once more heard noises outside and decided it was time to leave. The door led into a corridor that was only dimly lit by an emergency exit sign halfway down. There were no doors, but at the end there was a T-junction and he thought he could make out elevator doors straight ahead.

Carefully he proceeded down the hallway and was almost surprised to find that he made it to the elevator without encountering any more of his adversaries. Happily, Benji pushed the button, but nothing happened. He tried again, several times,without success. Then he saw the keyhole underneath the button. He would need a key to use that elevator. Which he didn't have.

With a curse he looked down the hallways to his left and right, just as doorless and dimly lit as the one he had come from, and decided to go with the inviting emergency exit sign to his left. This corridor was longer, but the door in the end looked promisingly like one that might lead outside.

Halfway through, he suddenly heard voices to his right, and before he could make out exactly where they had come from, there was the soft click of an opening door slightly behind him. He turned on his heels, but the goon was quicker.

The next moment Benji's gun was clattering to the floor. The agent readied himself for an attack, noticing from the corner of his eye that there was a second man standing in the door behind the first, but before the goon could deliver another blow, there was suddenly a lot of commotion in the previously silent hallway.

Dozens of footsteps came from behind him, accompanied by shouts that were echoing off the bare walls of the hallway which served to amplify the authoritative tone. "Police! Drop your guns!" several voices shouted, not quite in unison. "Turn around! Hands on your head!"

Obediently Benji raised his hands and turned, suddenly blinking into several flashlight-beams. He was marginally aware that the two goons behind him were tackled down as men stormed past, and soon after "All clear" shouts sounded from several directions.

"Found him," a more familiar voice announced right in front of him and while the techie was still trying to get used to the sudden light, William Brandt added: "I think you can take down your hands now."

"Are you alright?" Luther suddenly appeared next to him, his gun already holstered.

"I've been worse," Benji tried to joke with a lopsided grin, but leaned back against the wall, as the adrenaline rush started to fade. "Doesn't mean I couldn't be better though."

"We'll get you out," Luther promised, then lowered his voice. "But since the FBI is here now, we've got to go through a few things first. Do you still have your cover down?"

Benji nodded. "I'm Jonathan Baker, IT specialist, originally from Lancashire, in the States for business."

"And right now you're also a protected witness," Brandt added. "Just like Julia."

"Right," Benji acknowledged, and Luther continued. "As far as the FBI are concerned I'm one of their people, the name's Jack Marsh. Brandt is pretty much himself, and Ethan's going by the name of James Webster, also FBI, and we made Dec MI6."

"Where is Ethan?" Benji put in, looking around.

"On his way. He and Gormley were looking for you in Vancouver," Brandt answered and thought for a moment there was a mischievous smile on the techie's face. "They should be here soon. And we should get going now. Can you walk?"

"Worked fine before," Benji answered, although he didn't sound entirely convinced. He took a deep breath to steady himself, and regretted it immediately as his ribs stung in response. Maybe he shouldn't have taken off the bandages, he thought. But since they had been as wet as the rest of his clothing, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, and now it was as it was. With clenched teeth he carefully put weight on his right leg. He nodded reassuringly when it held up and the others accompanied him back to the elevator.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Rachel Parker watched, not without a little satisfaction, as her junior agents walked the kidnappers out of the building. One of them was wearing a hospital issue dressing gown and, as she knew, nothing but. She had a pretty good idea of what had happened to his clothes, which was why she had decided to leave them with their current owner. She would need to have a talk about that with the others later on, but the British guy did need some rest, and as long as the doctor was in, she wouldn't have a chance anyway.

Just as she thought that, she spotted the three men crossing the lobby. One of them was Mike, her sort-of-assistant, but it wouldn't have needed him for her to guess who the other two were. The self-assured way with which the first of them came directly at her clearly declared him as the leader and made Mike seem as if he wasn't even there. She gave him a dismissive nod, then turned to the other two.

The first was not only very self-assured, but also a bit too obviously good-looking to be handsome. His black hair was too intentionally messy-groomed to be truly straight out of bed and he wore dark jeans and a button-down shirt that were a bit too designedly casual to actually be off the rack, and the most elaborate pretty-boy smile she had ever seen. Also he wasn't much taller than Rachel herself, so she had a bit of a hard time trying to take him seriously.

The other one was a little taller than average height, although it might just look that way because of his slim, athletic frame. He had a slim face with a flock of unruly dark-brown hair and silent gray-blue eyes. His slightly too wide clothes, and generally just a bit sloppy style made Rachel estimate him to be in his late twenties, although she got a feeling all that was intentional and he was in fact older.

"You're in charge?" the first one asked.

She nodded. "Special Agent Rachel Parker, FBI."

"James Webster, also FBI. Declan Gormley, MI6," he replied, nodding at his companion. The taller man just nodded his approval.

Rachel couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "I thought there were only five departments in the British Military Intelligence Service?"

"That's what they want you to think," Webster said with a smile that could almost have been conspiratorial.

Gormley gave her a broad grin himself. "There's seven, actually. But if you tell anyone I might've to kill you."

Rachel decided not to comment on that, and moved on. "I guess you'll want to have an update on the situation here?"

"Actually my partner already brought us up to speed," Webster replied with a smile that almost made the FBI agent sick. "But we'd like to speak to Mr. Baker. Since it looks like you got everything under control here."

"Fine with me," Parker replied curtly. "8th floor, right down the hall."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"So you to finally decided to show up?" Luther greeted the other two agents as they joined him and Brandt in front of the closed door to the room they had been pointed to. Ethan answered him with a slightly crooked ironic smile, but then decided to ignore the statement.

"How's things going?" he asked instead.

"How do you think?" Luther shot back, but didn't receive a reply. Ethan only glanced questioningly at the closed door and then back at the others.

"The doctor's still in," Brandt finally informed them. "But I think Benji's doing well, considering what's been going down here."

Ethan was about to reply something, when the door of the room they had been waiting in front of finally opened and a man in a white lab coat stepped out. His graying hair and gold-rimmed reading glasses made him look stern and thoughtful, but his face wore an undoubtedly pleased expression. He nodded a greeting at Luther and Brandt, and after some hesitation also gave Ethan a nod of recognition, and Gormley a curious once-over glance.

"We've had to redo a few stitches, but given the circumstances, I think your friend is doing remarkably well," the chief surgeon said in a general direction, although he was mainly turned back to Luther. "I have to say he is incredibly lucky, too, but even taking that into account, he's doing far better than I had hoped for. It will take some more time, of course, for everything to heal properly, but if there are no further complications, I think we can already discharge him in a day or two."

The doctor gave another look at each of the agents, then took a deep breath, before he said with a broad smile: "You can go in now."

For a moment Dr. Harrington thought of asking them to not go in all at once, but he was held back by a hand on his forearm. "I'll make sure they'll keep it down," Julia reassured him. The doctor looked at her doubtfully for a moment, then gave her a much more tired, but also warmer smile than before.

"Alright. I guess I can trust you on that," he said and left.

Julia closed the door behind him, but before she could turn around to the others, she was swept up in a tight hug. "Hi, Jules," Ethan whispered next to her, then held her back far enough to look into her face. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Julia reassured him and leaned back against his shoulder, just so she could savor the embrace a moment longer.

"I'm good, too, by the way," Benji chimed in from his place on the bed. The techie was lying on his belly, his chest propped up on a pillow near the foot of the bed. He was still wearing the slightly too large clothes he had taken from one of his adversaries, and which he much preferred to the alternatives the hospital could provide. With a glance from Ethan to Declan he added, "Where have you been, anyway?"

"We just came in from Vancouver," Ethan explained, when he and Julia finally loosened their hug, yet not without keeping an arm around each other. He gave his friend a concerned look. "How are you doing?"

"Well, it does feel good to be on painkillers again," Benji smirked and held up his right arm where an intravenous line was connected to a slowly dripping bottle. "Although they're not giving me any of the really good stuff. Something about I probably should keep a clear head."

"Cheer up, I brought you a present," Luther chimed in and placed a flash drive and a laptop computer on one corner of the bed so that the other technician could reach both.

"Is that my backup?" Benji asked with glowing eyes.

"If you sent your backup to Portland, I guess it is. And it gets better," Luther replied. After an approving nod from Julia, he took out a plastic bag and stacked an assortment of chocolate bars he had raided from the vending machine down the hall next to the computer. "About that backup, though, I just hope you know what you did there. Because to me it sure looked like a hell lot of nonsense."

With a broadening smile Benji picked a Mars bar out of the heap, unwrapped it and then gleefully dug in, while he plugged in the flash drive and waited for the computer to boot up. "So," he said through a mouthful of chocolate, then decided to swallow first. "If you guys have been in Vancouver, did you, by any chance, bring my hard-drive?"

"Yeah, about that," Ethan started and pulled out the battered metal casing. With an apologetic look, he handed it to the techie, then exchanged a glance with Gormley. The Irishman looked like the puppy who had just broken the china vase, when he added, "We kind of had to beat it out of that one guy."

Benji looked at it for a moment, then tucked it away with a sigh. "Well, then I guess we'll just have to do without it," he said and started typing away on the now booted up computer. His movements were a little awkward with his left hand still set in a splint and the range of the other limited by the intravenous line, but he was working just the more fervently for that.

Using a coding program, he opened the executive file directly from the flash drive and started assigning different colors to parts of it's source-code. Luther positioned himself so he could see over his shoulder and watched curiously. "Just what exactly are we looking for?"

"Anything that's not Java," Benji explained. Luther only raised a questioning eyebrow at him, and he elaborated, "I used some random program I found on the internet, then inserted comments in random positions and entered parts of the actual file in those comments. Since the functionality of the program itself isn't altered by the comments, no one would ever guess what's behind it, by simply running it. And I made sure it's very hard to spot even looking at the code."

"Well, you certainly managed that," Luther muttered and couldn't completely hide that he was impressed.

Benji's smile grew even broader at the other technicians praise, so much it almost threatened to burst his face. "Now all I've got to do is filter out the comments and put the program back together. I wrote an extra program to do precisely that, but that was on the hard drive and I don't think it's still salvageable, so I guess I'll be quicker if I just do it by hand," he continued and almost as an afterthought added, "but that could still take a while."

"Do you know what it is?" Brandt asked, and Benji interrupted his typing just long enough to shrug.

"I've got a general idea what it might be. I know it contains some sort of listing, and I'm fairly certain it's some sort of government thing, and pretty old. Apart from that I've only had a casual glance, and I didn't really recognize anything," he explained. "Concerning the details, I thought maybe you could help me with that."

He shot a short glance from Luther to Ethan and tried hard to hide his secretly excited smile, as they exchanged uncomprehending looks. "I think you'll understand what I mean when you see it."

Brandt looked first at Luther than at Ethan as if they knew something he didn't, but the latter only shrugged and then decided to change the topic. "How did you get it, anyway?"

"Well, you know I've been undercover with those kids in Bozeman. Really smart guys, I have to say. I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with some really cool stuff in the next few years," he started to explain, then cut it short when a glance from Brandt warned him from wandering off too much. He took a deep breath and turned back on topic, "Anyway, they got this huge garage full of old computer stuff. We thought they might have accidentally picked up some stuff they weren't supposed to have, and turns out we were right."

"So you took it and they wanted it back?" Ethan suggested, but Benji shook his head.

"Actually, no. They are really just a bunch of kids who have no idea, what they got there. I don't think they got through more than a tenth of their stuff over all, and they'd never even notice that it's missing," he explained.

"So what then?" Brandt asked, once more forcing Benji back on topic.

"Well, a few days ago, this guy showed up. He had some weird accent, European. Very southern, not sure what exactly. He managed to hide it pretty well," he continued. "What was even more weird, was that he asked specifically for discs with anti-magnetic casing."

"Just why would a disc need a magnetism proof case?" Declan asked and Benji smiled almost patronizingly.

"We're talking about a 3.5 inch floppy disk here," he said in a lecturing tone, but his excitement was all too obvious. "You take that kind of old school stuff near a magnet and you had a file. Because of that important discs were stored in special cases, and the government had their own types, which was what that guy was after.

"I gave him some of the other stuff I found in the same crate, which I had made sure was completely worthless by now, but I think he was after something specific and knew I had intentionally thrown him off," he continued. "The day after, I noticed someone following me around, and when I came back, my flat was broken into, so I decided to leave, first to Vancouver, then here."

"And where's that disc of yours now?" Luther asked. Benji almost flinched at the question.

"I kind of lost it," he admitted. "I dropped it in the chase last night. They almost had me and I didn't have a better idea of how to keep it away from them. They kept coming after me, so I don't think they saw the drop. And I got a little lost on the run, so I can't exactly tell you where it is. But we should be able to narrow it down."

"Well, that they tracked you here likely means that they still don't have the disc either," Brandt put in pragmatically, but Benji interrupted him.

"That's not quite true," he said. "Those people today, that were different ones from yesterday night. I still don't think the others found the disc, but I'm pretty sure we're dealing with two different groups of people."

"And the guys we met in Vancouver still thought you were there," Declan added.

"Which means unless someone hired independent contractors, we're dealing with at least three different parties," Ethan concluded with a sigh. He started to say something else, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Rachel Parker was acutely aware that all eyes were on her, as she stepped into the hospital room. Still she took the time to look at each of the people present in turn. She still couldn't make any sense in her head of this group of people who seemed so entirely different from each other, but yet, from what she had seen, worked together astonishingly well.

From all of them, she figured, she liked Jack Marsh the most. She wouldn't have been able to give any particular reason, but at the very least he had try to be honest with her from the very beginning.

Then there was the CIA agent, who still looked impossibly neat and tidy in his suit, as if he had just jumped out of an advert for office-wear. Although she had to admit that her first impression of the office agent who didn't get out enough probably wasn't entirely correct.

By now she could also see why the two of them were working together, but there was still something nagging in the back of her head, yet what exactly that was eluding her. The idea of FBI and CIA working together this way was weird enough, but not unprecedented.

And then there was Webster, Marsh's partner. The pretty boy. When she had first seen him, Rachel hadn't for her life been able to figure out, just how the two fit together, especially since to her Webster seemed to be the kind of man who's ultimate goal in life was to talk up girls.

Right now he was standing arm in arm with the nurse, Susan Tremaine, and not in a forced or awkward way, but in the pose of two people who had known each other for a long time. Something about that made him suddenly at least more likable. Again, she thought, she might have to reevaluate her first impression.

The Irishman Webster had brought with him stuck to the corner of the room and she almost would have missed him standing there. She could believe easily enough that he was from the British Intelligence Service, although he missed the spit and polish of most official liaisons she had met – the only one who featured that in plenty was the CIA analyst. Still, what irritated her most was that Gormley seemed to be looking at Webster for instructions. As was everyone else, she realized thinking about it.

And then there was Jonathan Baker. His witness protection story seemed to check out with the records, as did they all, but that didn't make it all seem less weird. He seemed to fit in with the others amazingly well, yet Rachel still had a hard time believing that he had taken out at least three of his kidnappers single-handedly, especially in his physical state. Also there was the little matter of what he was doing in America after all. She knew she was still missing a lot of pieces to this picture, but even what she already had didn't seem to fit together all that well.

"Can I help you?" James Webster asked and Rachel realized she must have been standing in the door longer than she had intended.

"We're all cleaned up downstairs," she finally said and decided to look straight at Marsh, ignoring his partner entirely, as she continued dryly, "Before I go home and write my report, though, I'd like to talk with you and fill in all those holes my boss would be really unhappy about."

Marsh passed the look she threw him once across the room, and his partner stepped forward. "Alright," he said and gave her a softer, almost friendly version of his pretty boy smile. "Let's talk."

"If you don't mind, I'd prefer to talk to Special Agent Marsh," she returned coldly, holding his gaze. Webster turned around to the other FBI agent, and she knew she didn't catch even half of the unspoken conversation that followed.

"I'm in charge," Agent Webster finally stated. "You'll talk to me."

"With all due respect," Rachel continued icily, "you weren't even around. You don't know what's been happening here."

"Then I guess, you'll just have to tell me," he replied and demonstratively opened the door. By now Parker thought his smile was an integral part of his face, because it was still there, somewhere, covered by an unyielding expression. Suppressing a sigh, Rachel stepped outside, closely followed by him.

Closing the door behind them, Webster pointed at a set of red couches in a corner at the end of the hallway and they sat down opposite of each other. "Before we start, I should probably tell you that I don't like people who pull rank for their own benefit," Rachel said pointedly. "And I also don't like people who let others do the dirty work for them."

"And that's what you think of me right now," Webster stated almost thoughtful. Then shook his head. "The reason I wanted to talk to you myself is because Agent Marsh doesn't have the authority to tell you anything, and I'm pretty sure he already told you that."

"He did mention that, and I'm sure he followed his orders to the letter," Rachel replied dryly. "I take it then that you do have the authority?"

"No," Webster said straight away and the woman raised an eyebrow. His smile flickered for a moment. "If you really just want to pluck the holes for your report, it's quite simple. You responded to a hostage situation, freed the hostage, took the men responsible into custody and since you stumbled into our ongoing investigations, we'll take it from here, saving you a lot of trouble. But I think that's not what you're after."

Rachel opened her mouth, but closed it again right away. She didn't know what was more unbelievable, that Webster just wanted to gloss over all the details or that he seemed to be ready to give her all the credit for handling the hostage situation to do it. "You're not really FBI, are you?" she finally said. "And that Irish guy is not MI6, and your other friend is probably not CIA either."

"William Brandt is a CIA agent," Webster replied. "And while I admit we're probably not the regular agents for any agency, I believe you've read our files."

"For someone with your apparent seniority, there's a whole lot of nothing in your files," Rachel snorted.

"A lot of that 'nothing' is classified material," the other agent answered calmly.

"And I guess that's why you can't tell me what's going on here?" she asked with a sigh she couldn't suppress anymore.

"What do you want to know?" Webster asked back.

The directness of the question left Parker speechless for a moment. Now that she thought about it, she simply couldn't phrase what she wanted to know into a simple question.

"I thought you already said you couldn't tell me," she shot back defiantly once she had regained her composure.

"I said I'm not authorized," Webster said almost conspiratorially. "If you want to talk to someone authorized, you should talk to Agent Brandt. But I'm pretty sure he's not going to tell you anything. Since my partner already told you some things, I'm prepared to go a little further, if only to convince you that you don't want to be caught up in this. But I'll get busted if someone finds out this information ended up somewhere it wasn't supposed to, that's why I wanted to talk to you myself."

"Alright then, Mr. Webster. If that is your real name," Rachel started after chewing her lip for a moment, trying to get her thoughts into an at least somewhat coherent order. "Tell me, then, what's up with that nurse, Tremaine? And Mr. Baker? Is he some sort of criminal?"

"James Webster is not my real name," the other agent admitted, which effectively shut Rachel Parker up. He smiled at her dead-pan expression and continued, "Susan Tremaine is my wife. She accidentally got caught up in a case I was working. In the aftermath I had to put her up in Witness Protection to keep her safe and assigned myself as her handler so I could see her at least every once in a while."

Rachel thought she could see something almost like sorrow in his face, before he shook it off and went on, "Jonathan Baker is working with us. He was also involved in the same case, which is how he and my wife got to know each other. I can't tell you any details about that, but something new came up which prompted us to work with him and Gormley again, and that's why he is currently in the States. We got separated in the process of our investigation and it was pure coincidence that he turned up here."

Rachel nodded and took a moment to digest what he'd told her. She knew it couldn't possibly all be the truth, but it also seemed to not be an outright lie. Although she wasn't sure if that wasn't just because it seemed to be too strange to all be made up. Finally she looked up. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Honestly?" he asked and she nodded again. "Self-preservation, I guess. And because I have too high an opinion of you. Most others would just accept the credit for this thing and the possible career push it would give them and forget everything else, but the fact alone that you came back to talk to me, shows that you're too good an investigator to just let this go. And if you keep following this up it could seriously endanger our own investigation and everyone involved with it. Not to mention yourself."

Parker held him in an ironclad gaze for a moment, then sighed. "Alright," she said and stood up. She smiled wryly. "I'll pick up your suggestions in my report. I guess I should thank you then, for leaving me the credit for this catch."

"I thank you for trusting me in this matter," Webster replied and for the very first time his smile seemed to be entirely professional. They exchanged another nod as they stood up and Rachel headed off, down the corridor, while the other agent returned to the hospital room.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"So what did you tell her?" Luther greeted Ethan as he entered the room again.

"What she had to know," the other agent stated. It earned him questioning looks from everyone around, but he didn't say anything else.

"I don't like it that she knows anything more than our official cover," Brandt said pointedly.

Ethan turned to face him. "She doesn't know enough to compromise us, or the IMF," he replied matter-of-factly. "Also we would be in more trouble if she decided that we're not who we pretend to be and started to dig deeper."

The analyst thought about replying something, but let it go, when Luther interrupted them. "Ethan, you better come over here," he said from his place behind Benji and gave a silent whistle, when he looked at the document the other techie had just reconstructed. "You should really have a look at this."

"What is it?" Ethan asked and walked over. Benji had handed the laptop to Luther and the other two agents stood behind him, all three bent over the screen intently.

"List of some sort," Declan shrugged and looked up. "Looks like a lot of code-names. I can see how someone would want to get their hands on that."

"I would say, that's non-official covers," Brandt put in. "But I think this is at least ten or twenty years old, I don't recognize any of them. Still, I don't like it that this can get out in the open so easily."

"It didn't get out in the open," Benji mumbled through another mouthful of chocolate. Somehow he still managed to sound sarcastically insulted, even through the broad grin he by now miserably failed to hide.

"Not yet," Brandt corrected him dryly. "And that it got so close is enough to make me uneasy already."

"And it should, if this I think it is," Luther chimed in and handed the small computer on to Ethan. While Hunt started to scroll through the list on the screen, he continued, "It's a NOC-list, alright."

"Is that what it seems to be?" Ethan asked slightly incredulously as he read through the file.

"You tell me," Luther answered and shook his head. "All I can tell you is that I'm sure I've seen it before. I just don't know if it's the real thing, and you've had more time to look at it back then."

"So you're saying that you know what this is," Brandt clarified and watched Benji's smile grow even broader in anticipation. Sometimes he wondered how there was even enough space on the techie's face to support a grin like that.

"Hold on, are you telling me that this is _the_ NOC-list?" Declan asked disbelievingly, although he was fully aware he only voiced the question that had been hanging in the room already. "As in the actual one you guys got out of Langley?"

"Exactly that," Luther said, eliciting a triumphant "Yes!" from Benji.

"So, if that is it, not saying that it is," Brandt put in with a hint of doubt in his voice, "how did it get there?"

"I don't know," Ethan admitted. "But we have to assume that it is. And at least that gives us a place to start."

"And where exactly would that be?" Luther asked, but instead of an answer, Ethan just gave him the computer back and headed for the door. "Hey, wait. Where are you going?"

"Out," Hunt replied, already through the door. "I think I know someone who might know more than we do."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"And what do we do now?" Declan asked, still staring at the closed door where Ethan had left a moment earlier.

"I think we should try to find Benji's disc," Brandt suggested and looked at the techie.

"As I've said, I've got no idea where I dropped it," he reminded them.

Luther looked at him slightly doubtfully. "You don't remember anything?"

"I guess if we start with where I got picked up by the ambulance, I might be able to reconstruct it," Benji replied with a shrug.

"Which was where?" Brandt asked on.

Everyone looked back at him blankly, until Julia got up. "I think I can help with that," she said and headed for the door. "I'll be right back."


	6. Chapter 5

I'm sorry for the delay this time, but there have been technical issues.  
 **  
**

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

Ethan left the bus at the second stop, as instructed, sat down on the bench and took out a strip of chewing gum. He sat and waited, wondering just whose idea this bit had been, as the next bus came, and went without him even getting up.

Another bus passed, and a third. Ethan's chewing gum was starting to taste stale and the continuous drizzle was slowly getting stronger. After waiting for almost half an hour, Hunt was starting to think about leaving, when the next bus came. A man in a dark coat with long, hydrogen blond hair got out and nodded at the agent as he passed the bench.

Hunt got up and followed him down the street. The man went two rows down, then vanished into a narrow alleyway. Ethan went after him, and discovered his guide had waited just long enough so he could see him vanish into a house through a back-door. Reflexively Ethan took a look around to make sure no one had followed him, before he went inside.

On the other side of the door he found himself in a corridor that was illuminated just enough so he could see the man who had brought him there in front of him, flanked by two guards. The two men were ready to grab the agent's arms, if necessary, although intelligent enough not to do so right away, while the long haired man held up a shroud.

"Really?" Ethan asked. The other man only shrugged and offered him the shroud again. With a sigh he took it and pulled it over his head. He could feel someone taking him by the shoulders from behind and strong hands securing his wrists with cable binders. Then he was led forward, someone pulling on his wrists in front of him, while someone else was shoving from the back. He didn't resist.

"This is where they picked you up," Julia said and spread the map she had procured on the floor for everyone to see it. Then she took out a red marker and drew a circle around the indicated area.

"I took a close right before I got to the house, and another right before that, which would put me right about here," Benji explained and indicated the alleyway he had ran from the night before in the map. "And I think I got there from about here, which would mean, I dropped the disc right around here."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Julia marked the route on the map and then added a big X in the general spot Benji had pointed.

Luther frowned. "I hate to point it out, but where exactly did you drop that thing?"

"I didn't know where to put it," Benji admitted, slightly sheepishly. "So I dropped it down a storm drain."

"But with the heavy rainfall last night, it probably got washed off," Julia put in.

"Great," Luther mumbled.

Brandt sighed. "Alright, then. Let's head into the sewage system."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"My dear boy, it's been such a long time." Ethan would have recognized the voice that greeted him even without taking off the shroud. As it was, someone behind him chose precisely that moment to pull away the hood. He felt a slight sense of déjà vu as he found himself seated opposite an elderly woman looking at him across a desk with folded hands. "Just look at how you've grown."

"Max," the agent replied in greeting. A polite smile stretched across the woman's face that was framed by a bob-cut of reddish dyed hair, lined with very fine silver strands. It produced very thin wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. "You haven't changed a bit."

"My, my. Still as charming as ever," Max replied with a twinkle in her eyes. "I don't think you have come all this way just to flatter me, though. Have you?"

"I'm looking for a list," Ethan answered, leaning forward on the desk and the face of his host dropped slightly.

"Still right down to business, I see," she said and leaned forward a little, too. "Just what sort of list would that be?"

"A list of covert operatives," Hunt replied, aware that he was stating the obvious. "Non-official covers, to be precise. The NOC-list."

"Oh, that old piece of junk," Max said with a throwing-away gesture. "And what makes you think I know anything about that?"

"Because you are among the few people who ever had physical contact with it," Ethan said and leaned just a little closer, enough so he could see the bodyguards on both sides of the room tense. "It would have been easy for you to make a copy. I know I would have."

"That would have been nice," Max replied with a snort. "Only you don't think your friend Kittridge would have let me get away with it, do you? Also, if I had a copy, why would I wait until now that I am effectively out of the business to come forward with it?"

"I don't think you made such a horrible deal for yourself," Ethan answered dryly.

"I would think that. Still, it gets a little boring when you can't go after your business anymore," Max sighed. "But I guess I managed to get around with that."

"I might be able to negotiate on your behalf," Ethan put in. The woman looked at him doubtfully. "If you tell me where the list is."

Max gave him a slightly tortured look, then sighed. "First of all, I want it cleared that I have neither your damned list, nor the slightest idea where it is," she said and Ethan nodded in agreement. "Now that we got that out of the way," she continued, "a week or two back, I was approached by a man, who was also looking for the list. I told him the same I just told you, only he didn't believe me. Said he had it from safe sources the list was still out there. He went out of his way quite a bit to get more information from me, first with flattery, then with threats."

"So?" Ethan asked curiously.

"I hate to be threatened in front of my bodyguards," Max replied. "And I think I managed to drive home that point rather nicely. Only it wasn't over. I had to go through the same thing twice again, and now this business still won't leave me alone."

"So your contact sent more of his goons," Ethan concluded, but Max shook her head.

"Some people are a monumental pain to work with, but they are not that stupid," Max chuckled, then her face went dark again. "No, these guys were working for someone else. Your list seems to be pretty popular in certain circles."

"And you don't happen to know who they were working for?" Ethan probed. Max answered him with a smile.

"The first one called himself Mattheo Bareille, he is an Italian gentleman, as far as I know, working on contract for the highest bidder," Max explained. "I can't tell you who his current employer is, as far as I know he might be working independently to auction the list off in the end. The other two interested parties, however, seem to be one Mr Kazuo Hashimoto and lastly a Jared Mokrani."

"Do they know there are other interested parties?" Ethan asked on with an almost satisfied smile.

"If they do, they don't know from me," Max replied as if he had just insulted her honor.

"And how may I repay you for this information?" Ethan asked cautiously.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll think of something," Max replied with a sweet smile.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"This is just great," Brandt muttered as he looked down the storm drain. They had removed the grid and he was shining down the concrete pipe with a flashlight. While 'clean' was not an adjective he would attribute to it, the slimy surface did not show any recess where the disc might have gotten stuck. There were a few scratches in the surfaces of algae that might have come from the disc, but those ended down in the water of the main pipe, which was still running high from the day before.

"So that disc we're looking for," Declan asked to confirm his suspicions, while staring over Brandt's shoulder into the dark, wet depths of the Seattle sewage system, "is somewhere down there?"

"If that disc fell in there, than there's no chance in hell, we're gonna find it again," Luther pointed out, completing the triangle from across the hole. "With the rain from last night it could be at literally any point down that drain pipe."

"Not necessarily," Brandt put in. "These pipes have grids every now and then. It could have gotten stuck on the next one."

"Could?" Luther asked doubtfully, and Brandt replied with a shrug.

"We'd have to get down there to find out, right?" Declan said and pointed at the hole. "I mean, no one's gonna get through this."

"I think I saw a manhole a little back," Brandt answered and stood up, looking down the alleyway. "Yup, right over here."

He started tugging at the cast-iron cover and Luther helped him remove it. The inside of the this pipe did not look much better than the other one, and although there were steps let into the side, they were covered in just as many slimy algae as the storm drain. Luther stepped back and looked at the others. "I'm not gonna go down there."

"I'll give you ten bucks if you do it," Brandt put in and earned a raised eyebrow from the other agent.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Twenty?" Brandt offered.

"Forget it," Luther countered. The other agent was about to raise the stakes, when Declan walked right past them.

"I'll do it," he said and started climbing down the moss-covered steps. "What kind of agents are you anyway?"

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"Hey, look who's back," Luther called when the door of the hospital room opened and Ethan came in. He, Brandt, Julia, and Benji had started a poker game while waiting and it seemed the analyst was winning. "Where've you been?"

"I found us some more information to work with," Ethan said and looked around the room. "Where's Declan?"

"Taking a shower," Brandt replied and added two plastic coins to the pot. "And checking out the place we found to stay for the night."

"I take it then you got the original disc?" Ethan asked and squeezed himself in between Julia and Luther. Benji decided to fold.

"Right here," the Britt said, patting the small case beside him. "And it still works, which is a bit of a miracle considering where it's been."

Ethan raised a questioning eyebrow at them and Brandt and Luther exchanged a conspiratorial glance.

"It ended up in a sewage pipe," the analyst finally explained and looked expectantly back at Luther. The other agent decided to go along on the raise, then revealed his cards. Only a slight frown indicated Brandt's dismay at losing this round. "And Declan went fishing for it."

Just as he ended, the door opened again, and the Irishman joined them. His hair was still more than slightly damp, leaving a trail of drops on his fresh white shirt. "Good news," he announced. "We have a place to stay, and transport, and the showers work."

"So where are we staying?" Ethan asked and picked up the cards as Benji dealt him and Declan in.

"We got permission to use an official apartment," Declan said with a sideways glance at Brandt and put in the first plastic coins. "It's a little bit from here, but it comes with a car. And fresh clothing."

Brandt couldn't hide his amused smile as well and earned a death stare from Declan. Luther decided to save them both from further humiliation and looked at Ethan. "So what have you been up to?"

"I found out who our bad guys are," Ethan replied, trying to hide his smile as he added his own share. "As far as I know we are dealing with three different parties. But at least one of them is working freelance."

"I hate it when you look like that," Luther said and raised him. "Don't tell me that you have a plan."

"He has a plan," Brandt sighed and tossed his own chips onto the table.

Benji took a quick glance around, then decided to also call. "So what's the plan then?"

"We set up an auction," Ethan replied, untouched by the sudden stares everyone shot him. "And then we bust it."

"And why would we want to do that?" Luther asked.

"To get who's behind this," Ethan replied. "There seem to be a hell lot of after that disc, including Mattheo Bareille, Kazuo Hashimoto and Jared Mokrani, according to my contact."

Brandt whistled in something like admiration. "Bareille is most likely working freelance, and the others are not the biggest fish out there, but if they are on this, I'd say there's more to this and they could provide some very interesting intel."

"So we set up this auction to bust them and then give them a deal for handing us their bosses," Declan summed up. He looked at his cards and the stack of chips in front of him, then decided to go all in. Julia was out already.

"Ethan, I can see this go wrong on so many levels," Luther put in. "If they find out that we're onto them they'll bust us before we can bust them. Or in the very least just disappear."

"He's got a point," Brandt joined in. "We haven't exactly been unobtrusive here, and it sounds like you made a bit of a mess in Vancouver, too."

"I had the sweepers handle Vancouver and this was officially an FBI operation," Ethan reminded them calmly and raised the stakes. "Of course it will require some back-end work to make all of this water-tight and edit us out completely, but on the short term we should be covered. And we won't need more than that for now, because the auction will be going down tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Luther repeated, wondering not for the first time if his friend had gone crazy. "And how do you intend to set this up in that amount of time?"

"We don't," Ethan answered, his mouth twitching with a smile. "My contact has graciously offered to take care of everything for us. Which also has the advantage that we won't have to be as careful that no one will smell the trap."

"I don't want to be annoying," Brandt said, increasingly unhappy, but called his raise. "But who is that contact of yours?"

"An independent third party, who is only interested in getting back their peace and quiet," Hunt said. Plastic clattered as Luther held his bet and raised.

"Are you sure they can be trusted?" Benji asked.

"No," Ethan answered without bating an eyelid. "In fact I wouldn't trust them at all, but right now they don't have any interest in setting us up, and a lot of interest in helping us."

The other agents all stared at him with concern and a good measure of annoyance. Finally Brandt folded with a sigh. "Alright, so what exactly constitutes your plan?"

"My contact has dropped a note to all interested parties, that Jonathan Baker is willing to sell the disc to the highest bidder," Ethan explained. "The auction will take place in a wine cellar. Buyers must appear in person, unarmed, and bring only a maximum of one man as security detail, also unarmed. And the goods will have to be paid for in cash."

"A wine cellar?" Luther asked incredulously, and Hunt nodded.

Brandt rubbed his face. "Unless we have very different ideas of what constitutes a wine cellar, we're talking about an enclosed room, with very limited access, no windows... If we storm that place, it's likely to end very messy."

"Why not take a sky bar?" Declan suggested. "I could take a helicopter and..."

"No. Because they could do the exact same thing," Ethan cut him off. "An open place like that would be much too susceptible to sniper attacks and other bad surprises. If we can't storm the place easily, they won't be able to either, and that should make them more comfortable to come in the first place. Besides, we wont need to, since we'll be letting them go."

"Excuse me, what?" Brandt said, trying to make it sound disbelieving, but it came out only mildly more annoyed than he had already been anyway.

After trying hard not to chew his lip, Benji had called again, but Declan shook his head and folded too.

"You said yourself, our buyers will probably only be middle-men," Ethan explained, calmly adding more chips to the pot. "They are not our target, but if we do it right, they can lead us straight to the big fish."

"We put a tracer on the disc," Benji said as if that was the idea of the month.

"On the disc and on the people," Hunt corrected him.

"Hold on," Luther chimed in, looking hard at the other agent. "You're not planning on giving them the actual list, are you? Because no matter how old this stuff is, if that gets out in the open, it can screw a hell lot of people really bad. Including us."

"That's why I've go this," Ethan replied and took out another floppy disc. With a smile he passed it to Benji.

"What's that?" Declan asked, eying it suspiciously from the side.

"That is our decoy," Hunt answered.

"And how do we know that the buyers won't know the difference?" Brandt asked in his role as devils advocate.

"That disc and the list on it, are almost as old as the original. And they were made up pretty much foolproof back then," Ethan explained. "I doubt anyone could spot the difference if they don't have a copy of both for direct comparison."

Brandt still looked profoundly unhappy, but he nodded. "So who'll be going in then?"

"Benji," Ethan stated, and all agents looked at the technician.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Luther asked, clearly thinking it was not. "No offense," he continued, looking at the Brit. "But you're still pretty beat up."

"It's our best option," Hunt argued. "At least one of them has met Benji in person, and he's still got a relatively low profile over all. And they know he's the last person who's had the disc. Sending in someone else or using masks would only give us more unnecessary risk factors. If you think you're up to it?" He addressed the last words directly at Benji.

The technician looked a little stunned, then shrugged. "Sure."

"Alright," Brandt said dryly. "I suggest we call it a night then. I'd like to see that cellar before we have to show up there tomorrow."

The others nodded in agreement and rose, while Benji packed up his card game. "Luther?" he asked as they turned to leave. "Would you stay for a while? I've got an idea, but I think I'll need your help."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"Brandt?"

The analyst turned his head when someone unexpectedly called his name. He had just come off the phone with Alan Hunley. The secretary hadn't known if he was supposed to be happy or angry about the not entirely authorized recent exploits of some of his most senior agents, and so the conversation had been long, and exceedingly tiring.

It was way past midnight and Gormley had already made himself comfortable on the couch. Luther had announced he would stay the night with Benji, since the two technicians were clearly working on something. Ethan and Julia had taken up the bigger one of the bedrooms, which left Brandt with the only other bed, and he had assumed the two were already asleep as well, but now Ethan was standing in the door.

"Do you have a minute?" the older agent asked.

Brandt shrugged. "Sure," he said, wondering what he would want to talk about alone.

"I need your help," Ethan said and sat down on the bed next to the analyst. The other man looked back questioningly, but before he could say something, Hunt continued, "I'll need to find a new place for Julia to stay."

For a moment Brandt wondered, just why he came to him with that, but once he thought about it, it did make sense. As chief analyst he had certain resources that would enable him to set up a new cover quickly and efficiently without too many people knowing about it.

"I'll see what I can do," he said, not wanting to promise more than he might be able to keep.

"Thanks," Ethan replied and for a moment rested his hand on the other agent's shoulder. Then he got up and left Brandt to his bed.


	7. Chapter 6

Here it comes, the finale!  
Thank you all for sticking with me this long, and especially thanks for all the awesome reviews!  
And a big thank you also to my amazing beta-reader, who has managed to work her way through another 24 pages of my endless sentences and messy grammar, so if you enjoyed this, there might be something more coming, soon.

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

"How do I look?" Benji asked when he came out of the bathroom. The first thing he had done after he and Luther had joined the others in their apartment this morning was rummaging through the extensive wardrobe, and now he was dressed in dark trousers, a dark petrol shirt and a very straight black jacket with large front pockets. The only signs of his adventures of the day before were the splint on his right hand and a slight limp.

"Looking good," Luther replied and threw him a small plastic device. "Here's your ear-bug."

The other techie caught it easily and installed it into his ear, while Ethan went on explaining, "We only have one pair of visco glasses, so Declan will be our eyes. He'll double as your bodyguard."

The Irishman nodded curtly at the mention of his name. He was dressed completely in black and his equally black sunglasses were still dangling from his shirtfront.

"Brandt will be posing as barkeeper right outside the auction room and I'll be sitting in the lobby upstairs, so we've got the only exit covered. Luther will set himself up in the restaurant directly above and handle surveillance."

"And here's our masterpiece," Luther added and set a flat, padded bag onto the table. Inside was a small laptop computer with an external sloppy-disc reader. "We've done a bit of work yesterday night."

"You put a trace on the disc?" Brandt asked as if he was missing the obvious.

Luther gave him an almost grin. "Even better," he said, then nodded at Benji.

"First of all, of course we put your standard physical GPS tracker on it," the Brit explained gleefully. "Low signature, low ping-rate, so hopefully it won't be spotted as easily, but we had to put it in the casing, otherwise it would interfere with the operation of the disc.

"Secondly there already was a trace on the disc itself," he continued. "I guess it's part of its original design. It's a little bit old style and pinpoint precision sinks drastically with range, but it should be hard to spot for anyone not looking straight at it, exactly because it is so old. And lastly we built a virus directly into the file that will spread with every copy and give us the identity and location of any computer the disc is booted up on.

"Also we implemented a virtual disc-drive on the computer," the techie added and his joyous smile turned a notch mischievous. "When we boot up the disc, it will look as if it's the actual disc, but in truth it will show the copy of the original list I made earlier."

"It looks like now this thing actually has a chance to work," Brandt added, just a hint sarcastic.

Ethan nodded approvingly. "Good work."

"Don't look at me. All his idea," Luther said and Benji beamed. "I just helped to get it done in time."

"Well, then let's just get on with it," Declan added with an almost happy grin and headed for the door.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"Gentleman, lady," Benji motioned a curt half-bow into the direction of the only woman present. She was, tall, well-tanned with long, wavy brown hair and obviously the bodyguard of an Asian businessman, and only answered him with a cold, unimpressed glance, before returning her attention to Declan.

The Irishman stood behind him with the best no-nonsense face he could muster and was the only one in the room wearing a gun. Or the only one, at least, who was wearing his firearm openly. Benji didn't doubt that someone had smuggled a concealed weapon into the meeting, despite strict instructions warning them against it.

"You all know why we are here today," he continued, looking over two dozen or so mostly black-suited people with various briefcases sitting in short rows between meter-high wine barrels. Half of them were security detail, unanimously looking at least mildly irritated at his own bodyguard. They had argued whether or not it was wise to show his customers that he didn't trust them, but fact was that he didn't, and with very good reason.

"Frankly, I'm just tired of being chased and shot at, and all I want is my money," Benji explained and held up the unspectacular disc case. "And since you all seem to have such a great interest in this, you can now make all this your problem for the right sum."

"Just a moment, Mr Baker," a sun-burned looking man in the front rows put in, pronouncing his name like a question. Benji identified him as Mattheo Bareille. "How do we know that what you're selling us is the real deal?"

"Have a look at it yourself," Benji answered with a smile. He took the disc out of its casing and held it up for a moment for everyone to see, then put it in the reader of the small laptop-PC that stood on the desk in front of him. The computer was connected to a beamer and he motioned at the wall behind him where the projection mirrored the display of the PC, as he continued. "What you see here is what is on the disc. Of course I'm not qualified to judge the authenticity of the content," he added and his smile grew a notch wary. "That would be up to you."

Soft discussions in multiple languages arose around the room and Benji picked up various snippets, but he didn't concern himself with it. If there was anything interesting in it, one of the others would pick it up, and he didn't have any doubt that Brandt would have one of his underlings sift through the recordings once they were back in D.C., maybe even do it himself.

"You all know the rules," he announced and the murmured conversation slowly died out. "Payment has to be cash only. If the highest bidder fails to produce enough on the spot, the item will fall to the second highest bidding, and so on. The bids will be made in US dollars, but I will accept any currency as payment, to the current exchange courses of the International Monetary Fund." A short grin crept across his face, when he came close to just using the initials of the institution. "Now if you are all quite ready, let's begin with one million."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"So far, so good," Brandt muttered when the first buyers started leaving the room. They were careful not to leave in bulk, he thought. But none of them took much notice of the barkeeper in the typical wine-red waistcoat mopping up glass-shards and liquid. Some of them frowned at the sticky floor, but doubted any of them would notice the microscopic tracking devices now sticking to the soles of their shoes, each of which would send off a GPS signal in uneven, roughly hour-long intervals.

"Signals are good," Luther announced in a satisfied voice and counted. "Tracking now, two, three, five individuals."

"Traces verified," Ethan replied as their targets came by his post in the lobby and Brandt tuned out of the conversation that now mostly went back and fourth between the two. He spread more of the sticky liquid on the floor, but stood up to make way as more of the potential buyers headed for the stairs.

"That's all of them," Benji suddenly announced and Brandt already allowed himself a sigh of relief. It looked like this worked exceptionally well, despite his darkest fears. And cursed himself a moment later for his shortsightedness.

"Hold on, we're missing a trace," Luther said sternly. Brandt bit his lip before he could say anything that might have compromised him in front of their target. It wasn't necessary, because Luther almost immediately went on: "Tall, slender guy, red hair, white shirt, no jacket. Left front corner."

Brandt spotted the man in question just before he vanished in front of his amazingly broad bodyguard up the stairs. "He's past me," he muttered into his radio and suppressed a curse.

"That's our buyer," Benji announced. Now that he was alone in the cellar, he had tapped into the security feed, too. "Maybe the tracker from the disc is interfering with the micro-bugs."

"Not sure," Luther replied. "I don't want to bet on it."

Meanwhile the redhead passed through the lobby. Ethan folded up his newspaper and casually walked over to the rotating doors, so that he was there just before their buyer. Right outside the door's radius, he bent down as if to pick something up. Standing up, he bumped into the man, seemingly accidentally. The redhead stumbled, but was caught by his bodyguard.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir," Ethan said with an apologetic smile and bent down again to pick up his scattered newspaper. "Really sorry."

"It's alright," the man muttered and hastily proceeded down the street.

Ethan got up and followed them as closely as he dared, but neither of them turned around. "Please tell me you've got a signal."

"We've got something," Benji announced. "Not sure, though. It's pretty fuzzy."

"You better hang on to him," Luther added and Ethan went on.

He followed the two men down the street, then right through a small side-street onto a big main road. Once he almost lost them as they crossed sides and he couldn't run a red light, but they went on in the same direction until they reached a bus stop. For a moment he thought he'd be able to catch up to them, when little children suddenly ran at the bus stop, seemingly out of nowhere. They were next to a school.

"I'm loosing them," he said, still closing the distance between him and his targets, a little more than he was comfortable. Yet, as the crowd of children was getting denser and more older and therefore taller students joined them, he got close to losing sight of the two men.

"Hold on, hold on" Luther called over the radio and there was the clatter of frantic typing in the background.

A bus pulled up next to the bus stop and Ethan was close to getting on himself, when suddenly cheerful the techie announced, "We got a signal."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

William Brandt sat behind his desk, tipping back his office chair and sipping coffee. The brew was black and so strong it could be smelled from the corridor, and he drank it in large doses, despite the late hour. And of course he also offered it to the two men sitting across from him.

Both of the agents declined with a head-shake. Luther had once made the mistake of accepting and was since convinced that the black liquid would eat through the building if it was spilled on the floor. Ever since he didn't trust the chief analyst anymore, at least not concerning coffee.

"We've got our first fish from the Seattle operation," Brandt announced almost cheerfully. "We're still waiting for the big drop, but we've already got enough intel for two minor follow-ups. Since this was basically Benji's party, I gave him the choice and he'll be taking Jane and Skye to Australia. Which leaves me to offer you a trip to Russia."

"With the option to decline?" Luther asked hopefully. He shuddered at the thought of the cold Russian winter.

"The mission is choose to accept, as always," Brandt confirmed, but looked at Ethan. "But it's only a small thing. And the only reason I got Hunley to sign off on you as my first choice is because you fit the physical profile better than anyone else we currently got available."

Ethan half frowned as he took in Brandt's meaning. In the wake of the Seattle mission the secretary had of course caught on to Julia's existence and had not been very happy about it. Although all the paperwork was in order and approved of by his predecessor, he had made a major point of this. Brandt suspected that he still had some sort of personal problem with Hunt and this just was his next reason to take it out on him.

The agent himself was acutely aware of that, too, and that two weeks Russia would at least give him some sort of breathing space. Ignoring Luther's annoyed look, Ethan leaned forward on the desk. "Tell me more."


End file.
